I understand that it must be depressing for people who see masks only as infringing on their freedoms and nothing else, because they are currently at the mercy of society.

If someone sees mask wearing instead as a joint effort to fight the pandemic, as means to get out of it earlier by limiting the spread of the disease or as a way that they can do something to protect themselves no matter what others might do, then it is absolutely not depressing. Self-efficacy influences mood positively a lot.

Wild how westerners make these dystopian associations, while in Asia it’s just part of basic hygiene, like expecting people to wipe their ass or wash their hands.

If you think masks are depressing and fearful, just wait for the climate wars...

These emotions are due to pandemic, yes? The mask is just an apparel - something that is now worn - but hardly the cause these negative emotions? I like the extra privacy a mask gives (introvert!) - but I do understand why some feel them uncomfortable.

The desire to get rid of masks is mostly iconoclastic in my opinion. People come up with all sorts of hand-wringing explanations for the anti-mask phenomenon but it's actually pretty simple in my opinion, people want rid of their masks for the same reason English people burn effigies of Guy Fawkes on the 5th of November. It's not the masks themselves that make people dislike them, it's what they represent. To some they're primarily a symbol of caring about your neighbours, to others they're primarily a symbol of government authoritarianism. It's this subjective, symbolic association that I think informs most people's opinions of masks.

I suspect the Venn diagram of people who don't like masks and people who don't like coercively collectivist politics is basically a circle. It certainly is here in the UK, most opposition to masks in Parliament came from the Tory backbenchers which I guess is why their mandatory use was dropped this month; the 1922 Committee (a formal group of Tory backbenchers) can force a vote of no confidence in the Tory leader if 15% of them call for such a vote. Tory backbenchers tend to be more small-c conservative than the Tory frontbench, they're not necessarily anti-authoritarian but they're often anti-collectivist.