showerthoughts is a better unpopularopinion than unpopularopinion
The reactions to most posts are overwhelmingly negative and critical. Ironically, posts to c/unpopularopinion tend to argue that they agree with the post, and are consequently more supportive.
Tho they are different things I think. When the person here says a less racist country would have more of a problem with spies or I say there would be less crime with a religion sacrificing prisoners to a death god, that doesn't mean we are supporters of those things; it means we had a thought unusual enough to share that makes sense in some way. We could want the opposite of what we are talking about. unpopularopinions implies someone has a minority stance.
I think it's more that people like to be contrarian, more so now that a lot of Reddit has moved to Lemmy. If someone says they have an unpopular opinion, crowds of people will jump to say it's not really unpopular; if someone posts a shower thought, it seems like you get a lot of responses contradicting the thought, or simply claiming it's not a shower thought. TBF, there do seem to be a significant number of posts in c/showerthoughts that aren't; like, long political posts, or whatnot.
Still, contrarian responses are becoming the norm.