I am getting bombarded with yt videos about this object being half the size of the sun passing our system with the planets aligned in a 0.01% chance perfect geometry etc etc. millions of views. It's incredible what people believe these days. Not a grain of skepticism.
I think the number of wacky believers hasn't changed that much. It's just that now the countless outlets and algorithms venting this nonsense have ballooned to galactic proportions! My dad used to buy these 70/80s UFO magazines back in the day and they were just as nutty.
Science teachers have failed their students.
Let's put science teachers in charge of the youtube boost juice and see if the situation improves.
Do all of the views necessarily translate 1:1 to the number of people that believe it? Some people watch just to see what kooky nonsense people are falling for.