Except the leaf isn't so close to the foreground that it completely obscures the person's head, and there is clearly other distortion/artifacting in the image. Something more than that is going on.
Useful skepticism actually takes evidence into account, rather than dismissing claims at a glance, or because "thats how the internet works right now."
Although to be fair(er), people didn't believe otherwise because, as you insisted, they were buying mindlessly into some internet hype/rage generator "mirroring their latest gripe or nightmare." The original photo did look odd and it generated a lot of interesting discussion. Honestly, it still does to me.
While that reasoning was (kind of) correct (the leaf didn't fall at just the right time, it was attached to a branch,) both you and root_axis above assumed people were being driven by stupidity rather than curiosity, which is still an attitude we could use a lot less of.
If it must be said, I do think there is some merit to what you are saying.
Now for my defensive response: stupidity of the respondents isn't my assumption, its their lack of considering other possibilities. user error of OP and the assumption OP went with does verge more closely towards something I would call stupid. but these are your words, I’m saying it was an obvious circumstance to ignore the crowd specifically because of internet crowd trends. And unsurprisingly to me, in hindsight, that turned out to be correct. The internet mirrors the desired predisposition because people troll, a lot.
Useful skepticism actually takes evidence into account, rather than dismissing claims at a glance, or because "thats how the internet works right now."