> The only difference nowadays is the speed with which people can reach this level of reveredness.
There is one other difference too: there's now an entire economy built around getting people to "this level of reveredness" for someone - doesn't matter who or why, the specific person or idea are not the point - and then pitting those someones against each other in dramas that are totally genuine and not at all unscripted. The point is to trigger and maintain this "visceral and irrational" response, because while in this state, the followers will happily buy pretty much any kind of high-margin, low-value garbage their favored online persona endorses, and they'll even feel good about it. It's a money printed machine.
I mean, it's one thing when people got angry over someone insulting the Pope, or the prophet Muhammad. It's different when you imagine Pope and prophet Muhammad were two besties, pitting their followers against each other, so they can sell them merch, raking in amounts of money they could've never get on their own. The latter is what's happening today, at scale.
There is one other difference too: there's now an entire economy built around getting people to "this level of reveredness" for someone - doesn't matter who or why, the specific person or idea are not the point - and then pitting those someones against each other in dramas that are totally genuine and not at all unscripted. The point is to trigger and maintain this "visceral and irrational" response, because while in this state, the followers will happily buy pretty much any kind of high-margin, low-value garbage their favored online persona endorses, and they'll even feel good about it. It's a money printed machine.
I mean, it's one thing when people got angry over someone insulting the Pope, or the prophet Muhammad. It's different when you imagine Pope and prophet Muhammad were two besties, pitting their followers against each other, so they can sell them merch, raking in amounts of money they could've never get on their own. The latter is what's happening today, at scale.