Is popular science in danger of turning into meme?

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Society used to hold people like Carl Sagan, Richard Dawkins, Lawrence Krauss in high regard. Michael Faraday was the original popular scientist, he would hold Royal Society Christmast Lecture that is open to the public and especially kids, he would do physics experiment in front of kids and teach them electrodynamics. The Royal Christmas Lecture is still an honored institution and event that is still held today
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_Institution_Christmas_Lectures

But now it seems like the zeitgeist has moved against accessible public science into posting basedjaks, similar to how the mid 2000s atheist movement gets discredited now because bunch of fedora atheist memes.