Why is Safari slow/using all my RAM on M1 MacBook Pro with 16GB of memory?

Today, for the first time ever, my M1 Macbook Pro notified me that I had no available RAM left and that I needed to close applications. I was very confused since I was using it as I have always used it since purchasing it in 2021 without ever receiving this message. After a whole day of troubleshooting, I think it may be Safari. Opening up 4-5 tabs in Safari (3 Twitter tabs, CNN, and this Apple discussion page) results in 14GB of my available 16GB of memory being used and if I try to switch between tabs I am stuck on a blank page for about 20-30 seconds until the page returns to where I left it. I can see on Activity Monitor that the top drains on my memory are the Safari tabs which is how I came to the possible conclusion that the problem is Safair. But what is most confusing to me is that this has never happened in the past despite me normally having 10+ tabs open at once. I have never had to open Activity Monitor before today so I don't know how much Safari would normally be using but 14GB/16GB seems quite high for a web browser on a marketed "high-end" performance laptop. And I've never had to wait for Safari tabs to reload after going to another tab and returning to it. Something seems off.

Has anyone had a similar experience and have advice on how I could troubleshoot this further? I am at a complete loss as I cannot identify what could've happened. I was using my laptops like I have been for the last 2 years and don't know what I might have done differently with Safari or any other application. Everything was 100% within my normal operation of the device.