A lot of the "scene" traditions and symbols has a lineage back to adolescent boys in the early 80's as that's when many of the influential groups exploded onto the scene, so even if they're emulating a traditional style, they're emulating one that arose out of kids who wrote badly who tried to sound cool.

(I've some really horrible examples to my credit too, but thankfully I don't think any of it has survived)

It struck me as well-written but highly in-jokey, and targeted at a very specific audience. If they were writing for the general reader, this would be terrible. But I took it as addressing other members of the hacker scene, hoping to prompt them into similar politically-focused action.