It's important to make a distinction between actual victims and those who participate in victimhood culture. A good example of victimhood culture which has made national headlines is actor Jussie Smollett's staged assault. [1] In order to make a political point, he went out of his way to make himself out to be a victim, because he knew portraying himself as such would get him positive attention from the media (and it did at first before the fraud was revealed).

The criticism is not toward actual victims, but those who fabricate or exaggerate their experiences in order to participate in victimhood. The latter group is partly responsible for the former group being unfairly denied and vilified.

Edit: This sociology article [2] differentiates the two in the context of microaggressions, as summarized in Wikipedia [3]:

> Campbell and Manning argue that accusations of microaggression focus on unintentional slights, unlike the Civil rights movement, which focused on concrete injustices. They argue that the purpose of calling attention to microaggressions is less to elevate the status of offended victim. "When the victims publicize microaggressions,” wrote Campbell and Manning “they call attention to what they see as the deviant behavior of the offenders. In doing so,” they “also call attention to their own victimization.” They do this because it lowers “the offender’s moral status” and “raises the moral status of the victims.”

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jussie_Smollett_alleged_assaul...

[2] https://brill.com/configurable/contentpage/journals$002fcoso...

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Rise_of_Victimhood_Culture