There are three strands, present for most everyone:
Power (sometimes seen as status, or the appearance of status)
Safety (survival and peace of mind)
Meaning (hope and the path forward)
The changes in our media structure, public health and economy have pushed some people to overdo one or the other and perhaps ignore a third. When a social network finds your button and presses it over and over, it’s hard to resist.
New cultural forces catch on because they hit on one or more of these. And politics is understood through this lens as well.
See the braid and it’s a lot easier to figure out why we might be stressed.