Thing is, like the towns in the post, these have always been "isolated communities with few jobs", but they used to be somewhat content. The difference is that they (like everyone else) are now bombarded with very powerful messages about rich and successful white people living in the Big City. They are basically getting constantly shamed for doing what their ancestors have done for generations. Those same powers of connectedness that can be so positive in certain cases (e.g. alienated small-town geeks finding accepting communities elsewhere) can often turn out to be trojan horses for cultural shaming.