I don't know if "this" usage has spread to the general population as a whole but it seems like it at least started with sites frequented by programmers / hacker

I don't know if "this" usage has spread to the general population as a whole but it seems like it at least started with sites frequented by programmers / hackers and I don't think its hard to see why something like "this" would become commonly used among this population as people who write code have a tendency toward trying to express things concisely when possible