Unlike Thich Quang Duc, none of them worked with other people to get anything out of their sacrifice and so they are forgotten. When he self-immolated there was a whole protest planned around it and they invited press. The Americans are all doing it as horrible alienated acts of desperation.

Yep, the dude had an entire congregation of monks and he self-immolated knowing the religious significance of it, which dovetails nicely with the self-immolation being a protest against religious persecution.