Plenty of things trend often on HN with very little community or support existing to date. They are still heard about frequently. The reason is the community understand how to get attention in a way that engages your average dev. It's that engagement rather than intrinsic value that is important. Programming languages essentially all do the same job. Convincing someone a wheel is rounder for your road at home is mostly about spin (and puns). I think it's safe to say the Perl community are not as good at this as they used to be say in the 90s or 00s. Another issue I think that many people overlook is ageism exists in tech. As you get older you are likely writing less code and managing projects or doing some design for others. At that point many of the tech decisions that are lower down are made by younger generations who also want something new, because the assumption at the moment is new tech is better tech. Which for the most part is sort of true.