Disclaimer: I only know bits of this story and am missing details.

Creator vibe codes configs, makes a "distro"

Creator says fairly fucked up things online, effectively a "dog whistle" gathering right aligned attention and money- and a quite a lot of it.

Begins hiring similarly minded people, claiming "the money will be spent" on the distro

All of it wreaks of BS.

Positive polarization: a lot of rich people are donating a lot of money to it, maybe (probably?) because the creator is well-connected and the OS makes lots of references to AI. Negative polarization: The creator has bad opinions, and the OS is very AI-forward.

They bought coverage. There is 0 reasons to use Omarchy over well.. about anything. It's like using Ubuntu despite Mint existing, but they also lack reputation, are evil, have had relatively many vulnerabilities in a short time frame, and have shady backing. I refuse to believe that anyone who promotes Omarchy daily drives it nor does not receive monetary compensation.

Probably the digital ocean donation.

Because every linux youtuber and their mom is making a video about it. And when you add buzzwords like "Agentic" and tell everyone that Omarchy is the future and will bring about the YOTLD, normies start flocking to it.