I had the opposite experience with the Smollet case. I actually never heard or cared about Smollet till it started popping up as the #1 and #2 stories in r/news. As someone who is on the left of political spectrum and politically fairly active, I don't of know anyone who really thought Smollet was some representation of the political left. The fact that he was actively "brigaded" and "upvoted" in r/news and r/conservative and r/t_d tells you a lot about political discourse and "comments" section. It has been taken over for trolls and professional trolls at that to score cheap online points, but also to game search engine rankings. There is no space for neutral conversation anymore.