Are articles that pull cheap punches & empty-headed loudmouths on Twitter a good metric for what's actually popular, though?
For a very recent example, consider the Damore memo as a recent example. Leaving aside what action you think should have been taken (_really_ not interested in that discussion right now), there was a marked shift in Google's reaction to the memo once it hit the idiots of the twitterati and blew up. PR matters to companies.