@velartrill I think this is largely due to two factors, the popularity of post-modernism (the ideology, not the alias for "stuff i don't like") and the cult/group mentality enabled by social media.
Post-modernism as an epistemological relativistic ideology (i.e. subjective idealism) states that all interpretations of reality are equally valid and that empirical evidence has little to no value. When this is put together with the ability of social media to dehumanize others and create mobs we have the quick and strong rise of the "narrative" that manages to acquire enough acceptance first. From there anyone that deviates from this line of though is quickly cut off, or "cancelled", by the mob.
Of course the fact that the fact that people in general have poor critical capacity, due to the deficient education system in most countries, doesn't help much either.
Why and how post-modernism managed to gain so much acceptance is still a puzzle to me.
The fact that dumb 13 year old kids from /b/ "warned" me about this as early as 2012 makes me feel weird.
gamers rise up i guess?
@velartrill I've given it some thought. And by that I mean that pondered about the subject while eating. This is not my area of expertise.
I was not able to find a reasonable explanation but all my approaches were based on imagining post-modernism as an active entity. I was trying to figure out how it could have distorted the mind of people.
It has just recently (today) occurred to me that maybe a better approach would be to look for a hole where post-modernism could fall, by mere accident, and then grow it's root. This hole could be the "social media model".
You seem more versed on the subject than me. Can you think of any other subjective-idealism/social-movement pair in history in which the "ideology fitting a pre-existing hole" pattern appeared and had similar consequences? From there maybe we can find a better explanation.
i suppose you could draw comparisons with the development of the NSDAP or italian fascism, but those took place in such utterly different social conditions (where people would actually, like, read books, and more to the point, signed up to die for what they believed in) that i'm not sure they're really useful. e.g. i doubt the woke brigade will get the point of gassing anyone themselves - they'll just whine and demand that the government do it for them.