I first noticed it in the Hitchens “Hitchslap” videos in the mid 2000’s, but I imagine it started out earlier as that when I started following politics and a lot of the videos and those adjacent to them were reposts of cable news shows.
Were Socrates and Plato just the 4th century BC equivalent of them? That’s depressing if true.
Debates aren’t pointless, it is public discourse with what is meant to be guardrails unintentionally becoming skewers. One would hope someday people again appreciate decorum and evidence based discourse, with time out for more research when needed, again.