There is a mob mentality around cancel culture where people get 'the whiff of blood in the nostrils'.
That's according to Newstalk Breakfast host Ciara Kelly, who was responding to an article suggesting people liked the Phillip Schofield fallout in the UK because we enjoy watching people suffer.
Ciara said social media is the equivalent of a digital pitchfork.
"They've tried to cancel me a few times on Twitter - somehow I'm still here," she said.
"To me cancel culture and that social media opprobrium, it's like the public stocks in the town square.
"They come for you with digital pitchforks, and it is an online mob.
"There are, at times, people [who] have societal disgust as a group about the actions of one person - but cancel culture isn't really about that.
"If you see how much people enjoy the cancel culture thing... and if you see how much people jump on a bandwagon, and you see the comments that they're making, they don't even really know what anyone is talking about.
"They're just joining in... it's like a bloodsport - they get the whiff of blood in the nostrils and they go for it".
'The grand accusers'
Ciara said the whole approach is about more than just consequences.
"There's something kind of savage, I think, in it and I think it's part of a dark desire," she said.
"It always reminds me of the guillotine in the French Revolution.
"If you look at even Irish Twitter, there's some grand accusers on there and then one by one their heads roll way.
"The grand accusers often have feet of clay themselves, there's something dark and odious and kind of dank in it.
"For those of you who say, 'It's not cancel culture, it's just consequence': there's something more than that.
"It isn't only about consequences for someone's behaviour, and actually their behaviour is often that they said the wrong word or mangled a point.
"We're not talking about anyone killing anybody, what people are cancelled for, it's alway fairly benign stuff really.
"They are savaged, and it comes from a desire and an instinct to tear someone down and destroy them - and people enjoy doing it.
"If people are glad that they've been offended by you, because it gives them an opportunity to attack you, there's something dark in that".
'There is a pushback'
Ciara said she believes there is a change coming.
"I think there's a pushback against cancel culture, I have optimism around this," she said.
"I think that dark, nasty, bitchy thing that is all sanctimonious - but it's actually hate masquerading as virtue - I think there's a bigger pushback against that now than there was.
"People are no longer as willing to see people cancelled.
"I think there is a pushback against cancel culture because I think people have seen it for what it is," she added.
