2012

I started seeing it just before 2019 although it seems like it was a big deal in universities since 2010 or thereabouts. It just wasn’t on my radar until say 2018. There seems to be a bunch of collectivist / Marxist ideologies that are all getting commingled. There’s intersectionality (oppressor / victim), ESG / climate, and even covid vaccines somehow got mixed in. I personally group all of the Marxist stuff under “woke” but I realize some may only use the term for the social justice warriors. The common thread is that all of these ideologies are anti-family, anti-human, anti-prosperity and anti-freedom. Thankfully I’m sensing the pendulum swinging back a bit on that craziness.

Maybe 2013. By 2016 being "woke" was no longer in vogue and co-opted for what its become today

All these things you mention though are part of the rebranding by co-opting the term. Originally it was more about being aware of the realities of systemic racism. But it got overused to the point where it was diluted.

'98

What's funny is the original meaning of woke was that you were awakened to conspiracies being real. Then some how it morphed into the present-day definition of hyper inspecting things for political correctness.

All the divisive topics started being front and center. Comic Dave Smith hash a video on it.

Shortly after, if not in response to, Occupy Wall St.

2019 Washington redskins had to change their name

That makes for a compelling key event.

I tend to agree that it goes that far back.

I saw a google trends thing (I think it was) showing a massive, sudden spike in certain terminology in, e.g., the NYT. People were "waking up" to the corruption on Wall St., to the fraud of ACORN, to the Community Reinvestment Act, eyc. Ron Paul was spreading the Audit the Fed and End the Fed message. The movement was growing fast.

But the ideological roots go back much further to the 60s, mainly. Just didn't have widespread institutional support until the 60s radicals, who "went to the schools" gained in position. James Lindsay has been all over this for a few years.

I think it (Critical Theory and its varieties) was weaponized / operationalized under Obama--when the 2013 NDAA "modified" the 1948 Smith-Mundt Act.

Another pivotal point, for certain.

*variants not "varieties"

It became clear to me something changed in 2012-2013 as radical leftist organizations began horizontal infighting over identity rather than typical unifying class issues. I have always had a hobby of reading radical left/anarcho theory and began to notice environmental groups falling apart over radical feminists holding female only spaces vs. trans activists demanding access to them. First time I heard the term cis made my head spin. I knew then society was in for one.

that corresponds with the year the Mayan calendar predicted end of an old cycle and beginning of another: Terence McKenna & Art Bell - All Interviews - Without The Commercial/Musical Breaks (youtube.com)

9.11

2019

started in 2015, peaked in 2020

agreed