Any system with upvoting leads to this, particularly after a certain threshold of diverse viewpoints. Too much attention is needed to accurately defend your viewpoint, leading to feelings of social isolation, outbursts. This can be exacerbated further if your outbursts wind up being popular, rewarding you with social bonding.
This also tends to remove a bunch of nuance from the most popular discussions. Nuance adds more noise, and people have no remaining attention for it. This lack of nuance feeds back in to general resentments.
100%, it's always these brownie points, it's like the currency of the virtual world, eventually people will reference and base everything about it, and will do anything to have a "ratio" in a form of wining. That's why -and as much as it sounds absurd-, I like the digital interactions with no upvotes/brownies, like anonymous boards (4chan etc.) or just usual chats.
This also tends to remove a bunch of nuance from the most popular discussions. Nuance adds more noise, and people have no remaining attention for it. This lack of nuance feeds back in to general resentments.