I have active negative interest in actually looking up what prompted this metaphor, but it's actually a really great encapsulation of very common social dynamic -- and, you know, it's part of the dynamic where we don't call out and cast out abusers. Because they use exactly this kind of dynamic to turn it around on the people who are brave enough to try even knowing the probably risk of said.

(Like I said -- negative interest in finding out what Sherlock fandom is up to. I have no idea if the public kitten-eating was what would be typically called abusive or is terrible in some other fashion instead. I'm just musing that this dynamic exists across a lot of societies/cultures/subcultures and is one very commonly engaged in by terrible people. I feel like that's worth noting, because, yeah, no interest in actually finding anything out about Sherlock fandom's latest kitten-eating explosion so I don't want anyone to think I'm commenting directly upon it! >_>)