It could be a small surge but something where you noticed a sudden influx of people. Maybe a game you were playing that got quite popular after it was streamed or there was free weekend on Steam.
For example during the quarantine and around the time when the used console market got prohibitively expensive handheld emulators like the RG350 and much later the Miyoo Mini got quite popular. This was partially due to more people at home wanting to play their favorite classics but also them being promoted as “fake” GameBoys and PSPs on TikTok.
Always been a naval history aficionado, which is a fairly niche interest among history fans. Always bugged me slightly, I get that boats and oceans are just … niche, but its also extremely useful as a lens through which one can begin to more broadly understand global affairs. It has a lot of tendrils everywhere, from military to industry and economics to diplomacy and culture to even a good bit of STEM, since ships are complicated and physics is a bitch. It’s the bulk of global logistics to this day, though.
Sales pitch over, there were never that many of us. Then World of Warships came out.
This guy has made no small splash either:
https://youtube.com/@Drachinifel
From time immemorial, the purpose of a navy has been to influence, and sometimes decide, issues on land. This was so with the Greeks of antiquity; Romans, who created a navy to defeat Carthage; the Spanish, whose armada tried and failed to conquer England; and, most eminently, in the Atlantic and Pacific during two world wars. The sea has always given man in expensive transport and ease of communication over long distances. It has also provided concealment, because being over the horizon meant being out of sight and effectively beyond reach. The sea has supplied mobility, capability, and support throughout Western history, and those failing in the sea-power test -notably Alexander, Napoleon and Hitler - also failed the longevity one. - Edward L. Beach, in Keepers of the Sea