They don't just do it because it's popular but also because it offers them excuses and protection for their faults and hedonism. It's the new religion of the weak and craven.

There's a guy I knew back in college. Fat tub of shit. Constant panic attacks. No spine. Habitual college student who was using his multiple degree pursuit to keep his parents off his back about the concept of having a real job. As far left as you can get. Guy virtue signaled daily on every topic you can imagine. Also begged for money every other month for his personal problems. Kept a pet autistic girlfriend as live-in. Then when that wasn't worth enough woke points, he dumped her and got a transgender person as a girlfriend. Went so far as to get her last name legally changed to his but they didn't marry because he was milking disability benefits for his mental condition.

Guy actually somehow manages to turn himself around. Loses weight. Uses the massive woke social media following he gathered to launch a business. Suddenly, not virtue signaling so much. Suddenly, he's willing to have republican friends. Suddenly he's dumped his transgender girlfriend the minute a normal attractive white woman took an interest in him.

Now he looks decent, has positive cash flow, prospects, and a GF that isn't sloppy seconds on man meat in a female cosplay. Now he doesn't have to pantomime wokeness constantly. What a funny correlation, that.