I've been wondering this myself. Related to this; I was wondering the other day why the seemingly sudden rise of people who buy into conspiracy theories like Q

I've been wondering this myself. Related to this; I was wondering the other day why the seemingly sudden rise of people who buy into conspiracy theories like Q-Anon? One possible answer could be that people are feeling like they are "less-than", purposeless, or not wanted. So then my next question was, why is that? It occurred to me that with the rise of consumerism (apparently skyrocketing starting in the 90's) we've had more and more advertising telling us, "If you just buy this product or service you will [be loved | get more sex | be prettier | get more sex]" When it was just TV and billboards advertising to you it was bad enough but at least you could look away and/or turn off the TV. With the rise of the Internet there was obviously another increasingly pervasive channel through which advertisers could reach you. But then came the smartphone and now it's like we're carrying a TV with us 24x7, flooding us with messages convincing us we're not good enough. Couple that with ad-supported apps that purposely try to be addictive and we are bombarded even more because we can't just be still anymore. Our constant need to be stimulated has become piggy-backed with messages telling us how inferior we are.