This happens with every phenomenon, for me. I don't hear about it for a couple years (in this case only a year), then I hop on board and all of a sudden it's everywhere. I was watching a video stream of a webcomic artist doing his thing, and he spent like ten minutes chatting with people about ponies. Dude had some good perspective on it, though - he had seen several episodes and didn't get the appeal for 20-something men, but admitted some of those men probably wouldn't get his interest in Star Trek.
Same thing with Cave Story. I'm seven years late to that party, and now it's everywhere I look. Apparently they just released a facelift of it to the N3DS.
