That has been my opinion for a while as well. It's really a huge amount of social signalling where people can group themselves into specific tribes by broadcast

That has been my opinion for a while as well. It's really a huge amount of social signalling where people can group themselves into specific tribes by broadcasting how offended they are by something someone well known has said or done. And because of that it's effectively become news, papers like The Guardian in the UK have endless opinion pieces which basically amount to people commenting on other people being angry on someones behalf about something someone said or did.