A&N's popularity is the inevitable result of the endless politization of everything on the Internet. The natural evolution of a lot of platforms over the last decade is to apply politics or some kind of "news" angle to everything. In short, almost all Western media is just straight-up news-type propaganda. A&N is just that--NPCs mindlessly posting propaganda from X, Y, and Z and little else than Reddit-tier responses as a form of "discussion."
(Incidentally, why many flock to media like Japanese anime is because the propaganda is not as forced or obvious as much of Western media is nowadays).
If you're part of the Gen X or Millennial crowd who grew up in the early days of social media, then you'd often hear the refrain to leave politics and religion out of any and all discussions. For a time, that was the working mindset until the 2010s and then things began to make a notable shift. It wasn't until the mid 2010s and GamerGate happened that non-religious, non-political discourse became a facade. So many people who had never injected politics or moralfagging into their content suddenly became righteous zealots for some deranged cause. To this, the train of ever-righteous zealots hasn't stopped and has recolored everything that used to be fun and enjoyable.
You often see Josh decrying how the forum isn't "fun" anymore. In reality, it's just because the Kiwi Farms was never immune to what was happening to the rest of the Internet. Josh yearns for a simpler time when we could laugh at Chris Chan or other bizarre personalities of the old Internet and not be bothered by the politcally-charged complexities of the modern Internet. Part of why he enjoys BossManJack is BMJ's quirks are very reminiscent of classic lolcows
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