On Radicalization

Sometimes, an "influencer" goes a little viral with some off-the-wall commentary, and they can become radicalized by their audience's feedback, as both they and their supporters constantly push each other further towards the extreme.

None of it has to make sense beyond everybody getting a nice little dopamine rush from having their biases regularly confirmed. And since that's how the influencer makes bank, they have a powerful incentive to keep it up, and no incentive to change anything.

Joe Rogan has made multiples of hundreds of millions of dollars this way - and he's the all-time champion because he plays both sides of the fence by entertaining wacky bullshit like ancient aliens one day, and then booking Brian Cox or Neil DeGrasse Tyson a few days later for a rational discussion of why the shit he was pimping last week makes no sense to normal people.