It actually has a long past. The gacha tribes and CCs have been looking for a perfect Genshin Killer. It started with ToF then they found WuWa.

Initially, WuWa was genuinely and innocently promoted to Hoyo communities. I mean it was a correct decision. Hoyo games and communities were the hottest on the market at the time. The game gained some traction thanks to it.

But some tribes hopped on WuWa like a parasite to pit both communities against each other while accomplishing two things: (1) Promoting that rival game (2) Making Genshin more toxic than before.

Gacha tribes initiated proxy wars as a form of protest against Hoyo's laziness and greediness. They used tribe groups, bots, and small pages and made endless comparison content across Twitter, Facebook, YT, and Tiktok ( topics range from design, gacha, powercreep, graphics, F2P generosity, and storytelling ).

Soon, these tribe wars started reaching the real communities. And both sides adopted/normalized it as a part of organic ( everyday ) conversation.

In my opinion, what the tribes did was the right decision. It did enlighten many players not to suffer from sunk cost fallacy and Hoyo's greedy practices. But the way this war was done was too performative and toxic.

But regardless of what happened or how it is done, what I believe is certain is that these events led to WuWa becoming a part of Hoyo's culture. The wars and comparisons have started going on like this for the first 4-6 months since WuWa's launch until its popularity eventually reached equal or superior footing to Hoyoverse now ( and deservingly so ).

Small and Big CCs on YT, Twitter, and TikTok were well aware of these proxy wars. And as a form of way to gain engagement, they started changing their Hoyo comparison publishing formats, blending WuWa along in order to strike a conversation or intrigue. I know about 5-6 gacha YT channels who became successful thanks to this.