To be more precise, I thought cancel culture is what you get when you boycott in a high information, attention economy. I used to boycott lactalis. I'm now able to find all of it's offshot brands, that I now boycott too. They have a few years ago, pushed a paid promotion to national influencers. I blocked them and all their channels. I am voting with my wallet and my attention.
Unless i missed the point of 'cancelling', isn't it just that boycott and block?
Because in the mid 80s, Lillian bettancourt purchased a manor in Brittany, a few years after an oil spill that devasted the coast and fisheries. Some locals associated her with her shares in Total, and in Loreal (which she owned and was a beneficiary of a refinery the tanker was going to). They filled her pool with liquid manure, and oyster farmers/regular farmer managed have one of their tractor break down every day on the only road access to her new manor for a bit ore than a month (never the same one). This is what i would call very mean, and should be avoided. If the persons you talked about did not suffer a tenth of that, frankly, they ought to toughen up and stop complaining.