How did chess suddenly get so popular?

How did chess suddenly get so popular all of the sudden? It's like suddenly everyone in all schools are playing chess nonstop. It's not only in my school. Youtubers are talking about how chess suddenly gained popularity, but not only chess youtubers. Random youtubers that have nothing to do with chess. Even minecraft youtubers like Parrotx2 is talking about how suddenly everyone in his school is playing chess. I tried looking up the answer but all google comes up with is how chess gained popularity like hundreds of years ago and how chess gained slight popularity as a result of the Queen's Gambit, which released back in 2021. So why now, in 2023, is chess gaining popularity? Ive been playing chess since kindergarten and always was the best in my school, both elementary and high school, so i love chess, im just confused why all the sudden people who would have had no interest in chess or anything academic or something that required smartness are now playing chess all the time.

someone plz answer im confused

The pandemic led to an increase in people using computers, which benefited online chess.

@InkyDarkBird said in #2:
> The pandemic led to an increase in people using computers, which benefited online chess.
im talking about like post-pandemic. It seems like it only started the beginning of this school year

@Toscani said in #4:
> fide.com/news/1131
Oh that makes sense thanks!

Did you see the pdf at the end of the web link?
Lichess is number 2 on page 20. ... But that dates back a few years.

A billion games were played on chess.com in January. Not in a year, a month.

For some reason, in January, the chess dot com app ended up near the top of the list of free games in all the mobile app stores and then became *the* no. 1 app for some time after that. It snowballed from there.

Queen gambit,covid 19

Pandemic is reason number #1.