Long time after various Xerox publications on desktop computing, after long time of crappyfication of desktops to lock users, some people start to realize that a desktop is a nice thing and... There are no desktops around in the modern world. So some try exotic little WM, perhaps tiling, some try to go a bit more in Unix CLI, some try Emacs as a 2D CLI or something better then Unix + (Vim, GUIs etc) to discover that's good and powerful.

Perhaps in 10 more years Emacs will have something Tioga has had in the past (like a bit more graphics capabilities)...