WTF?
Somewhere in the early sixties, some college students and university professors got some air and in about their reasoning to protest US involvement in Viet Nam.
The event(s) were rapidly picked up by every "news" and entertainment outlet (look familiar ?) and broadcast to the planet that a bunch of long haired men, all wearing denim and beads flashing something called a "peace sign", with their long haired beautiful women in colorful array, supporting her man, had united around ONE THING ... US involvement in (and slowly becoming the) Viet Nam (War)
By 1967/8, LIFE magazine (and others) were informing us that there was a global movement.
It didn't matter which industrialized nation they cameo'd; the USA, Japan, Germany, Russia, India, England, etc., there were clashes with police, sit-ins, take-overs, rock concerts, and a ton of money being made off of the "counter culture", ALL because of a conflict that got blown out of proportion.
I see the same thing with the latest strain of flu ... COVID.