Western pop Buddhism is actually a critique on Western philosophy and Hegelian idealism specifically. Pop Buddhism states that you are not your thoughts. Your thoughts and sense of self arise as emergent properties from subjects interacting with objects. This is what Jose Ortega y Gasset meant when he said ‘you are yourself and your circumstances’. This comes directly from Buddhism.

Most pop Buddhists don’t understand Hegelian idealism well enough to argue with you on an intellectual level, but they know instinctually that idealism is wrong.