There seems to be an uptick in the frequency with which people preface their views with some disclaimer that people will not like said views. "This might be controversial, but..." "Unpopular opinion but..." "Not trying to start a fight, but..." "Hot take but..."
There are three causes that come to mind:
1) The fact that everything is commented on and disagreed with creates an incentive to get out ahead of the comments and disagreements that follow an opinion. If I say something is an unpopular opinion, state that opinion, and people disagree with it, I still get to win even if the opinion itself is a losing one-- I was right!
2) You get more attention this way. If one page of an article ends, "You are going to absolutely hate the next sentence but," I am definitely going to read on to the next page. This is kind of the whole profit model of social media.
3) It's fun to feel like your views are unique. To be clear, I am a HUGE fan of launching hot takes and unpopular opinions into the world, probably for this reason. I can think of a time when I was hanging out with friends and I issued what I thought would be an unpopular food opinion. Everyone agreed with me. It was devastating.
Also possible this trend is not real, and I'm just wrong!
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