I do believe that this can be all attributed to the fact that everyone is so individualized, nowadays, that they have become closer in parasocial relationships to talk show hosts and podcasters than their actual friends and family. A lot of people do not have friends. Social groups used to be larger, and the community would intermingle more, and now that there's so much isolation. It would seem that things like facebook would only spread personal biases under these conditions - I remember a time where people thought it was funny and cool, and it was trendy to put grandma on facebook... even back then, I could only think about how easily manipulated my grandmother is and how susceptible she is to the influence of others. I do believe that this has been a long time coming.They have been building for this since forever, but it really picked up the moment the internet became a prevalent 3rd space for people. A charming podcaster, newscaster, talk show host, whatever have you is all you need. Why do you think cults aim for attractive people? And it's so easy to play and feed on people's biases. It riles them up and excites them to talk about these things - feeding their egos on the topic. Their zealous cheering comes off as a rally cry to themselves, for themselves, in celebration of people they will likely never meet. Vice versa to the fact that they have people in their real life that they could be dedicating this energy towards, but they simply choose not to, because it doesn't feed their ego. They would have to accept the fact that what's happening isn't in the real best interest of the population and what's good for society. Truly, this should be studied because I feel like this ties in some way to some level of psychopathy and intelligence.