When I was young and AOL instant messaging became somewhat hip, very few girls would actually use it, and when they did it was for things like school, or showcasing their custom made away messages. They didn't actually utilize it to talk because it was still geeky and nerdy, so you had to talk to them in person still. Over the years, nerd chic slowly crept in. Glasses with no lenses, the types of girls that carried two cameras with them so they could get pictures of themselves taken while holding a camera to post to MySpace. Years go by, online isn't just nerdland anymore. Now every kid is online, and women have the barrier of being online between them and the dudes they can lead on. Like it or not, we're not really supposed to be doing what we're doing, our brains ready for this level of engagement, so some guy on a Discord still winds up with the same chemical attraction to the girls on the other end of it, and that connection is very real to him despite it being pathetic.
Even the most cretinous, ugly person can hop online now and be hidden behind an anime avatar. That's about the closest those types are going to get to a real relationship, at least chemically, and that's how you create a simp.