I think it’s the same issue as conservatives suddenly realizing their favorite band or movie/tv franchise is gasp woke!

They passively consume media without analyzing it beyond the surface level, then are personally offended that they were “baited” into consuming what they see as woke propaganda.

Then they also notice a trend of more overt progressive elements in media because of an increase in surface-level corporate pandering, and they blame “wokeness” for bad storytelling without realizing people who are actually woke hate the shallow pandering too.