"Whataboutism", like "dog whistle", is a name for an imaginary discussion pattern that doesn't occur in real life, but is super easy to point out in most conversations, allowing one to cry foul and "win" the argument (or whole discussion) through violence instead of reason.

This is pretty much the same as accusing a colleague of insulting you through PR they asked you to review, because there's an added line that says:

  class HOLEInstance ...

i.e. obviously they're calling you "assHOLE".

- "But wait, it's no such thing; it's a Handle for OLE component instances - it's part of support for COM stuff in those legacy reports..."

- "AHA! See also here, dear readers:"

   class HOLEClientSite // TODO: : public HOEComponent?

"Surely, you see how bad my coworker is! They badmouth our customers too, and even call them public harlots! Don't believe their lousy defense that this was a typo, either!"

This is what pointing out "whataboutism" and "dog whistles" is. Artificial, cross-cutting pattern that match easily, but don't correspond to any real phenomena.

Weaponized pareidolia.