Answering the topic question.... I'm not entirely sure it DID start.
One thing the internet (and lots of meditation and the occasiona recreational drug) has taught me is... you always have to question the underlying premise. If someone is saying Modern Game is better than Classic Game because Modern Game has Feature X, your first duty is to ask "wait, why is Feature X necessarily good or desirable?" If someone is saying that Thing X needs to happen because of Situation Y, your first duty is to say "wait, is Situation Y even a thing?"
The funny thing is that most the time when that happens, it leads you to this breadcrumb trail of "I know Situation Y is a thing because of Source A!" which then usually results in a breadcrumb trail where you basically find out there's no reason to believe anything you've been told.
This only gets worse when the internet is involved. I've used this word a lot, but the term "astroturfing" comes to my mind a lot.
So essentially, I've become 90% solipsist. "90%" because a full solipsist believes that even their bedroom is fake, and fuck you my boxed copy of Earthbound is real and the 1980s and 1990s definitely happened and I really did used to visit a rental named Crossroads and no amount of the Jade Witch playing her violin will ever convince me otherwise.
But at the same time, my attitude is "if I've never seen it in real life, it's fake." Trannies don't exist. The woke crowd doesn't exist. This whole thing is some MMO larp that a lot of people like to play. By extension, Clown World isn't real.
Which is fine, it sounds like an absolutely horrifying MMORPG to be honest. It's probably a rejected sequel to Kid Klown in Crazy Chase.
I do wish more people saw it my way. The COVID epidemic taught me that a lot of people take fiction way too seriously.
One way I like to explain it to my mom: "The same device that tells me about Trump and Biden, is the same device that tells me Spider-Man defeated Doctor Octopus today, and I know THAT'S wrong..... he defeated Doc Ock last week."
