Chances are, in the past, you took up parabolas, exponents, logarithms and the power law in your math subjects in school. During that time, you probably thought it was just something you needed to pass, not really something you would have a practical use for in the future.
Another topic you probably studied in school was algebra, where you likely encountered the formula for a straight line, y = mx + b. Again, most likely you thought of all these as just topics you needed to understand and pass. But as you mature in this world, you realize that topics like logarithms and exponential functions do have uses. One such use is in modeling the parabolic popularity and adoption of memes, crypto, films, the spread of diseases like Covid — and even artificial intelligence.