All you have to do to see it is find a piece of current but generally ill-regarded media and post something negative about it. Then just sit back and watch all the totally real users flooding in to defend it and talk about how people who shit on it are only doing so for weak personal reasons, and it’s not that bad they’ve always kinda liked it etc.

Or just go to any halfway popular sub that talks about a food item that comes in a wide variety of flavors and brands. It’s a constant parade of pictures of brands with titles like “Who has tried this stuff and loves it?” or even “I can’t stand this stuff,” with an army of totally grass-roots posters defending it as “not for everybody but I love it” - and so on and so on.

It’s so obnoxious I can barely stand it anymore. Product subs and media subs are just worthless. I still get some traction out of niche gaming and hardware subs but that’s about it.