I see it as being connected to the dynamics of empire, more generally. Property ownership - and its enforcement by the state - extends vassalage to the masses, tying them up in the system in a way that rent alone can't: too invested to skip town, too small to have a voice in the legal framework.

If you "drop out" and live modestly, there's much less coercion to be had. That means that as the empire tightens up control over its assets, it foments moments of generational revolution through exclusion. And we have a picture now of that throughout the US, but also globally: no way onto the property ladder, crumbling faith in the enforcers, an older generation exiting and leaving behind institutions in need of a retrofit. It's a good time to quit given that it's not clear what the rat race gets you now.

The cheerleaders of empire, on the other hand, are necessarily going to be the biggest and best-funded media establishments, and because they operate within imperial reality they can only use logic from within the Overton Window, ideas that do not question the system and instead provides a scapegoat for its failings. Hence we are all a bunch of avocado toast quitters now, influenced by "extremists", "radicals" and "fake news".