That's a stiff statement that could use support beyond a passing comment on Hacker News. Let's take a few members of the "Intellectual Dark Web"[0] like Bret Weinstein, Sam Harris, and Michael Shermer; I'm truly curious how you classify them as "towering idiots".

[0] https://intellectualdarkweb.site/vanguards-of-the-intellectu...

As far as I can gather, it's a media coined theme.

Similar to the "alternative influencer network" that they coined for YouTubers.

The whole thing is grasping at straws really. The medias seems to think that everyone who is in the edgy/troll/internet/meme culture are working together for some nefarious purpose.

Their latest smearing campaign is against free thinkers, podcasters and debaters... or using their words, the "Intellectual Dark Web".

The only relation those people (both thinkers and influencers) have is that they use the Internet to 𝐚) spread their content and 𝐛) reference each other and sometimes collaborate together. Both of those actions are done by every content creators online no matter their intentions. Collaborations and networking is the basis of the internet.