Suppose 1 out of 1,000 people is into any given niche thing. It seems pretty rare, right?

In the US, that'd mean 328,000 people are into it.

Across the world, 7,800,000 people are into it.

So, that niche thing, whether it's a strange sex fetish or fringe belief, would have about 330,000 americans into it.

Assume they find each other, get together in big groups.

5 big events of 66,000 people, irl or online or whatever.

That tiny niche interest, whatever it is, representing 1 out of 1,000 people, can fill several stadiums. It can swamp multiple digital events.

It can appear large, if you didn't understand that for each person involved 999 are elsewhere.

At scale, *every* niche thing can fill a stadium.

Think of a weird fetish or conspiracy theory, and there's a forum packed full of fans somewhere.

What is seen, is a massive parade. A filled stadium. A completely swamped internet poll. A strangely enormous forum thread. Thousands of retweets. Etc

What is not seen, is that you are merely looking at the effect the internet has had on accumulating niches

Only 30 years ago, those 330,000 furry vore-fetishists slash moon landing denialists, would have been spread around the country.

Now, they can *all* retweet a picture of JFK getting erotically eaten by a space fox.

Your sense of social scale is centered on dunbar's number: you can't help but believe there are really only 150 people in the world.

Any number beyond that, just gets parsed as "holy shit that's the entire world"

So: a 330K retweet of vile racist horseshit, a massive boat parade of nazi trash, a miles-long caravan of antisemites, a swamped internet poll concluding that 84% of those polled think their opponents eat babies, etc

All register as more than a tiny niche

That tiny niche only seems large and imposing if you forget that there are a hell of a lot more than 150 people on earth.

Basically: in 2020, you can find 60,000 people who are aroused or angered by *anything*

You can put them all in one spot, thanks to the internet.

And then note that they represent only 0.018% of the US.