people outside the memeplex see those inside it as weirdos.
When judging how weird a community is, people often approximate a kind of "weirdness Pagerank" by looking at people the community holds in high esteem. I think Yudkowsky can come across as weird and offputting to some folks (not in person, but online. This is a bit of a tangent, but I think it is very interesting to think about the systematic ways our online and offline personas differ and why they do so). If people perceive that, their alarms immediately go off and they conclude folks are brainwashed since they are not seeing the weirdness themselves.
This can add some useful background detail. My protagonist is acting as a pseudo-Yudkowsky to the group, and has already been called the "Mad Queen" at least once.
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