What I don't understand is - why does it bother you that someone else is having a different experience? :P

Yeah, much of the branded overland stuff is unneccessary. So don't use it. Grab your Sports Direct discount tent, go out and have an adventure, enjoy your own life, don't worry about someone else ruining the "purity" of what you think is Your Thing.

No it is not "my" thing. And if the publicity gets people to step out of the rat race and enjoy travelling, that is great.
However, I feel like it is just another rat race if you only take it out for the weekends or small holidays, spent your money on a 4x4 but then spend even more on the stuff you put on it. For all of that, you need to make more money or at least keep working just as hard as you did before getting into this hobby of overlanding :P
I guess for many it becomes like a bucket list thing (so far not a problem) that is another expensive hobby that they are trying to squeeze into a working life. In small parts. Doing it in small parts with expensive trucks with expensive goodies makes it very expensive.

Let me be clear that I'm jealous of the awesome nature that is for many Americans their backyard so to speak. Here in Western Europe, it is not so much raw nature, and if it is present, you can't go wheeling through it. So I always need to travel at least 1000km for some nice offroading in the mountains or so.

Let me also be clear, that to me overlanding is something else than having a overprepared 4x4 and basically just going offroading and camping for short holidays.
To me, it seems just like offroading and camping trips, nothing more.

Anyway, it is also a commercial event. I prefer the meetings that we have locally, that are not commercial at all. Then you can tell people the opposite. As in, that your old simple beat up van is already good enough for most of the roads in Asia for example. (I had this discussion recently, somebody thought he needed a really good 4x4 with all the costs etc)

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2011 Overland from Amsterdam to Nepal and back
2018 Overland from Amsterdam to Tokyo via Central Asia and Mongolia

We are all tourists. Sitting in a fully loaded 4x4, on a bike or on your rucksack in a bus station