Why have options become so popular?

I'm an old school guy so I only think about using options to hedge against a stock purchase. But these days it seems like everybody is buying options by themselves (not tired to any stock purchase), and people seem to be only making options trades. I hear a lot on this sub about people trying to get good historical data on options as well. Were options popularized by social media influencers, or featured heavily in some app? Why did the world go options crazy?