Social media has accelerated this. No one would know who this guy was in the 90s, for example.

Success is awarded to the confident. You can be an absolute weird idiot and still, in the right circumstances, get massive success just because people assume there's a reason you seem so confident, and who are they to second guess that confidence?

I think a part of it is you have to be weird to want to chase power. Normal people aren't thinking 24/7 about how they can leap frog their way into power

Yeah, why can't they just be a weirdo freak (celebratory) like the rest of us anarchists?

Then they decide to get makeovers or permanent eyeliner like that's supposed to make up for all the other weird shit?

Useful idiots. There needs to be somebody who stands in front of the crowd and takes the blame. That person must be weird enough that people don't keep following once the support is removed.