One reason for the popularity of that growing could be the accumulation of online things old enough to care about and enough sources to be able to track things

One reason for the popularity of that growing could be the accumulation of online things old enough to care about and enough sources to be able to track things down. I mean, only a decade ago some things were still fresh while now they're worthy of some research. See for example Jeffiot working with the community to track down the source of the vision test pattern (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1D7I7fmZdOA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1D7I7fmZdOA) or the trumpet skull gif (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZYcHOEjGzPA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZYcHOEjGzPA). In 2000s the information wouldn't be out there for the first one and the tools and community would be missing too. The second one would be just one of millions of gifs that nobody really cares about yet.