It's a general trend in how we use language today.
These days we reach for words like genius, brilliant, incredible, amazing, and unreal for even the most average things. The meaning is gone. We've used up the language reserves.
Same for job titles when everyone's senior this or VP of that.
I would give more credit to the fact that there has been significant growth in what you might call "incredible", "awesome", etc. of late. Maybe the usage of those terms is appropriate given our circumstances in technology.
The issue with the titles is probably something else.
I was surprised to learn that someone was a "Vice President" at a rather large bank. Until I learned that every branch location (if I understood it correctly) had one or more "vice presidents" of something or other. I guess this would mean/imply some sort of executive authority at the level of the branch location.
These things seem to go in cycles. And to come, inevitably, with expensive consultants to tell us what is currently in vogue and that we should, regardless, be "minding that gap".
I work at a bank and have worked with several banks as part of my previous jobs. Banks often have a lot of Vice Presidents. The one I'm at has at least a dozen and it only has 400 employes. But it gets better: there are several levels of Vice President - Executive VP, Senior VP, First VP, VP, and Assistant VP. And that means we have dozens of people with "Vice President" somewhere in the title.
The reason I heard is that a small bank would have a few VPs, but would merge with a larger bank. As part of the merger, people kept their titles. This happened over and over, so large banks have lots of VPs. Not sure if that's true, but it sounds reasonable.
Of course, this might be as likely an explanation:
My brother worked at a bank in the financial services sector, and virtually everyone was Vice President or higher. The reason was simple. They were interacting with CEOs, and many CEOs would refuse to talk to anyone who was not vice president or higher.
Banks have ranks, for most employees, rather than job titles. For example, when I was there UBS had: non-officers, Associate Directors, Directors, Executive Directors and Managing Directors, in increasing rank.
Other banks do the same with other keywords instead of "Director". VP for example. Or whatever. The point is, it's just a rank scale that's meant to cover all the "officers" and provide them with sufficient apparent title that clients won't feel like the person they're dealing with is some junior guy.
One explanation I've heard is that a VP at a bank would handle as much money as in the budget of a VP at a normal company. But of course, it's just crazy these days.
Now time for a story, in the '90s the company I was working for IPO'd and we all had shares, not enough to get rich, but enough to be a nice bonus. I called Salomon Bros to exercise and a VP answered the phone... So even receptionists get the the title!
Whereupon, you knew you were communicating with someone who had real authority (interpolating from my own experience with corporate secretaries (the working kind, not the officer kind). ;-)
These days we reach for words like genius, brilliant, incredible, amazing, and unreal for even the most average things. The meaning is gone. We've used up the language reserves.
Same for job titles when everyone's senior this or VP of that.