Comment by djur

Right. The original meaning was just "politically aware", the same basic metaphor as the "Wide-Awakes" in the Civil War era. If you go back far enough you found it sometimes used in the "wake up sheeple" sense (i.e. referring to a conspiracy mindset). But it's basically never been the self-appellation of a political or cultural movement; essentially everyone who uses it that way is deriving it from critical right-wing discourse.