That's entirely untrue. Countries in the EU had strong privacy laws before the EU existed. And before the internet existed. Mostly around phone companies, but not only. Having lived in a few countries in the EU I can also anecdotely say that privacy laws are generally liked.
GDPR laws are so popular that 17 countries outside the EU already have similar laws.
For example now random security camera operator can't just take some scenes and post it on youtube, as that would violate GDPR in several ways and few companies paid tens to hundreds of thousands in fines for that.
It also cut sooo much bullshit when it comes to PII management. Because there is actual teeth behind it very little companies will try the old trick of "oh you wrote email to us ? Let's just send marketing stuff on that", as that would require separate consent.
The people on the ground didn't do anything with this