Internet trolls want attention. When the internet gives trolls attention and said that the trolls are culturally and politically important and dangerous it is exactly what was desired.

That many serious commentators didn't see this was itself very funny as anything with lots of attention on the internet does become influential! It is funny to a troll to see people pay serious attention to them "I am just a clown and they think I'm serious!". But don't think that they were actual comedians, lol, they are as serious as HN users.

In the dawkins sense of the word: the "meme" wants to spread and grow and the mechanism for it's virality was the immune response to it.

On another angle, the responses also gave the target an identity. Groups get defined as groups from outside more than from within. And it's always a wrong characterisation which also helps define the in group in relation. "You guys are all toxic Linux dude bros" inside: "but some of us love macs and windows, and some of us are girls, they sure dont understand our ways"