@lain This is a great explanation. There are so many examples of this pattern of:
1) Movement (in this case the field of physics) exists and does its thing
2) Scammers (string theory bandwagoners) starts as an outgrowth of movement
3) Movement is reluctant to denounce scammers because they claim to also be part of movement
4) Scammers effectively use movement as a shield to deflect criticism and denunciation, growing as a cancer within movement, diverting resources to itself. Movement doesn't mind so much because they still haven't separated scammers as not-movement
5) The scam gets too big and becomes a bubble, which finally bursts and while people forget the scammers, they blame the movement and identify it as the scam.

I think it's collectivism and the banality of evil. During the time when they should have identified the scam as not-movement, they stood idly by, because of solidarity with movement, and because scam was (in the short term) giving attention and money to movement.

When people are so "loyal" to their collective that they allow it to grow cancer and defend the cancer, their collective rots. And this is because they say it in collective terms in the first place, making them unable to differentiate between the good parts and bad parts, but instead all as "my team good".

Even this YouTuber was tripping over their words a bit, regarding whether String Theory is a scientific theory or not. If its not testable, it's not scientific. She ended with an opinion like "it's not bad, but it shouldn't get funding", unwilling to eject it from physics science.