Why has Fluther gotten dumber?

After having been gone for a while, I recently stuck my toe back into Fluther to test the water. While I’ve had my differences with Fluther, it has always been a generally intelligent, thoughtful place. There was always what I call the “Fun Brigade” of vapid, thoughtless flibbertigibbets, but they generally confined themselves to Social questions and were easy to ignore except when they descended en masse and hijacked someone’s question.

I’m noticing, however, that Fluther’s intelligence level has changed a lot since I left, and not for the better. It’s still not Y!A, of course, but the Fun Brigade appears to have become the dominant social force here. One of the things which appealed to me about Fluther was the large number of well-read, well-educated professionals here who were able to give qualified answers to questions. Those people appear to be in short supply now, and the number of one-sentence Dunning-Kruger MEEE TOOOO answers have proliferated.

What changed here? And has anyone else noticed the slide towards Idiocracy?