Call me woke, but I do believe XXXtensioncord’s popularity is what inadvertently lead to the rise in Gen Z conservatism.
X was frequently lambasted for being a wifebeater, misogynist, homophobe, New Age woo believer, social conservative (he spoke out against anti-racist activists), and pretentious asshole. The mainstream media didn’t want to touch him because he was too controversial. Yet, the more he was “cancelled” and despised for all his ills, the more it added to his allure among zoomers. X’s image was that of a deeply disturbed troubled genius whose pain and anger lead him to violence and nihilism. He was cold and cruel but that’s exactly what made him so appealing as a rapper to begin with.
This, I believe, was the gateway drug that turned a lot of zoomers (in particular, zoomer men) into far-right conservatives and fascists. All those zoomers who were listening to X back in 2017-18 while in middle school or high school voted for Trump in last year’s election. They are the same people who listen to Joe Rogan, Andrew Tate, and Jordan Peterson. It’s identical to how all the Gen X nonconformists who idolizes Kurt Cobain went on to become a Big Tech innovators or how millennials who spent their teen years listening to emo rock ended up becoming SJWs (since the essence of emo music is trauma and mental illness/neurodivergence). It’s all because X was cancelled time and time again before he was clout martyred, then smeared over and over again after death. Zoomers who loves him saw that and began internalizing X’s persona as well as resentment towards a morally-obsessive cancel culture.
It makes perfect sense once you think about it.