I don’t have any relevant data here, only my cynical priors.
I suppose that some people talk about topics because they care about them intrinsically, but most people simply want to be seen debating the “hot topic”, whatever it is. Once you lose the momentum and something else becomes the “hot topic”, you are not going to win them back, because nothing is more unfashionable than the last year’s fashion.
The momentum was broken by Covid, or war in Ukraine, or something else that I did not notice.
I don’t have any relevant data here, only my cynical priors.
I suppose that some people talk about topics because they care about them intrinsically, but most people simply want to be seen debating the “hot topic”, whatever it is. Once you lose the momentum and something else becomes the “hot topic”, you are not going to win them back, because nothing is more unfashionable than the last year’s fashion.
The momentum was broken by Covid, or war in Ukraine, or something else that I did not notice.