1) I feel like the difference in how Occupy Wall Street, earlier stages of Black Lives Matter, and now are treated are very much how Americans prefer seeing racism as a social issue with clearly defined good and bad guys and no larger social aspects. Occupy Wall Street not only included scary homeless stuff but was economic focused and therefore quickly downplayed. BLM didn't get much traction in the right-leaning media until last summer, but it was always a hard sell, and the moment it led to (unified) voices saying more vocally "hey, this country's rooted in some profoundly vile stuff" conveniently we were on to new stuff before we could start asking about things like rent control, public transit and other things which drive deeper than signs on lawns.

2) The NFT thing is incredibly disheartening; it's so obviously harmful but it's getting hyped and supported so much. It makes money for someone, and that seems to be the reason it's legitimized. Really drives home that while a free market economy might not be about this, *our* version of capitalism is great with any harm as long as the "right" people are making bank off it (rather than, say, thinking about the immense financial benefits of actually giving a flying clusterfuck about anthropogenic climate change).