Why is chess getting so popular all of the sudden in 2023?

It's 2023. It's been years since the pandemic lockdowns. It's been years since the 'queens gambit' series gained popularity. It's been months since the magnus scandal. Yet, chess seems to be much more popular  than its ever been; chess youtubers are making record clicks, chess.com servers are at capacity with millions of games running and all of the guys in my class started playing.

What has happened in the last couple weeks?

@LemonKingG Omg same, i feel like there is about to be a chess virus, everyone i see is playing chess, during lunch, during class, and even in the toilet!

@PANTHUS Exactly! It seems like everyone wants to join my school's chess club due to the supposed "chess virus". Numbers increased twofold from last year, which was QG era. I wonder how long it is before this virus will end and chess goes back to being a "nerd" game.

i now know more people in my school because of chess

It’s the year of the rabbit.

I think Chess has gotten really popular this year because of The John Bear

Literally everybody in my school is playing chess during class

quite a few of the nerdier kids in my school are playing chess but none of them are any good at all.... they only play 1|0 xd

We had Tate, we had those football (soccer for you americans) players mentioning chess, we had the movie m3gan with corresponding bot here as well as general "oh, ai is a thing" since chatgpt and AI taking artist job. And since chess boom from pandemic is still recent, people still remember chess as well as content creators had time to get warm in their role. Probably youtube algoritm is playing its part as well in showing more chess content.

Sure, it could be for people claiming that "everyone" is now playing chess. But I doubt observer bias is a great explanation for server overload on this site.

"Literally everybody in my school is playing chess during class"

That can't be right. Everyone knows chess is for geeks and nerds. There's no way ultra cool Gen Z would be into chess. Next you'll be saying books are sick and smartphones are for losers. Get a life dude.

A few people in my class have started playing and since I am 1600 they treat me like Magnus lol

Yeah... but most arent any good

I think it's probably for Tate

Unpopular opinion here. I think all chess booms were highly influenced by the youtube algorithm. Chess content got recommended a lot more all of a sudden and that's why more people started playing chess. I remember people writting articles about how GM Hikaru Nakamura is responsible for the success of chess or what not. People like to believe that someone like Nakamura, who has invested his life into chess, made the game what it is, but the reality is that youtube algorithm has more power over what will be popular than any streamer, youtuber, personality etc. Sure, queens gambit and pandemic definitely played a role as well back in the day. 

Just like repetitive adds, repetitive youtube recommendations of chess will lead many people to eventually click on chess related youtube videos. Since a lot more people are clicking on chess youtube videos because those videos are getting recommended a lot more, more people also start playing chess. And I completely understand why chess would be promoted on youtube. Chess is a pretty safe thing to promote, it won't get the owners of youtube into trouble, as opposed to channels that discuss politics, channels that aren't family friendly etc. Chess is a safe bet. I don't think that chess was promoted by design, maybe chess content simply happened to align with youtube algorithm and as chess is getting bigger, it only gets promoted more, creating a positive feedback loop. You can also believe that chess was consciously promoted by the CEOs of youtube, or that the US government or some other government asked youtube to push chess content, but as of now, I don't see a reason why that would be the case. The Occam's razor doesn't favor that theory.