From my extremely limited involvement in the community it seems like it was started by one artist publishing a very dreamy vision of "this is what the future of

From my extremely limited involvement in the community it seems like it was started by one artist publishing a very dreamy vision of "this is what the future of Blender could look like" to his followers. It seems like people liked it enough that a lot of it was eventually incorporated. It might have also started a wave of enthusiasm for more people to become involved.