I like to call this the Billy Mitchell Effect
thats actually a great point. i think its also a time thing, as time moves on people forget the bad stuff, look at RDJ or Johnny Depp. the haters move on after you lay low for long enough.
the movie came out back when saying "swag" and "epic fail" was still a thing. imagine getting pissed someone moved on from your ROTFLcopter era beliefs.
Something that also isn't talked about, that is leading to Nick Fuentes' rise is that the 90s and especially 2000s was the era of the "Latino Baby boom" and between that and general nigger fatigue post-BLM you saw a huge surge in people, especially zoomers getting redpilled in the 2020s, and latino zoomers are naturallly going to be more interested in content from Fuentes vs some middle aged fat redneck named Josh/Ethan/Andy
the references and concepts are completely different because latinos belief system and preferences are different. preferring GOT over LOTR actually makes perfect sense to a latino and even Tolkien would admit that someone who's ancestors are from an area part of the roman empire would be more likely to enjoy political manipulations and family drama vs a english bastardization of teutonic mythology.
Like if you found out Barack Obama or Andrew tate prefered rap to country music you wouldn't be surprised or pissed but most retards on the right would be because they dont see the race.
Even beyond that is culture, there's a reason telenovelas are still huge but those basically fucked died in the US in the 2000s and had their "height" in the 1960s
then there is just the fact that the internet in general caters to the youth so of course the guy in his 20s gushing about the minions is going to be more relatable and talked about than some guy in his 40s who talks about Captain Planet.
you can also attribute the rise of country and resurrgence of 2000s emo and pop punk while mainstream rap music died hard to this same phenomenon of latinos and a different cultural background, they didn't assimilate the hateful way the western media treated country or emo stuff 20 years ago. Although i do heavily suspect Rap's lack of self censorship compared to other genres killed it too, can't go viral if Tiktok won't let you say rape or murder or faggot.
Nick getting a ressurgence is like Carlin or Alice Cooper or aerosmith getting a resurgence like a new generation has come up and didn't experience the cringe years in real time so all they have is the modern guy.
You're seeing a similar thing with podcasters, Theo Von was treated like dogshit for the entire 2000s and a good chunk of the 2010s because he was seen as a "reality tv show star" like a Kardashian but to zoomers he's just a podcaster and comedian. Theo has been doing comedy for a quarter century but you'd assume he was some guy in his 20s the way his career has exploded. Nick Fuentes is seeing a similar thing, the new young people are discovering and loving his schtick in a way older generations never gave him a shot for.
Another huge factor for Nick is how awful his enemies are, they're all old and fat. Josh and nick having a debate live would look retarded for Josh. Nick is one of the few charismatic zoomers, and between that and the experience he'll dominate any real debate.
