Why is leet speak so popular in gaming culture?

[VanTesla]

7. The people that misspell "the" or actually expand words originally meant to be used as shorthand are mentally handicapped, a result of poor memory retention from an over-reliance and abuse of smart phones for social interaction. It's people who type like this and the personalities behind those people that are the reason why I recently dropped my WoW subscription and will never look at LoL with even a passing glance.

I bet you feel joy when you find out that some of those people are school teachers or better yet english teachers.. Brings a smile to my face knowing our education system and youth are in good hands...

 

[Something Amyss]

My apologies, this attempt at writing a sentence would be embarrassing even for a dyslexic person.

XD You are forgiven, sir. Although there are different levels of coping with dyslexia, so it's possible there are dyslexics out there spelling like that right now.

 

[DarkhoIlow]

1 d0|\|7 |<|\|0\/\/ \/\/|-|46|-|7 y0|_| 4r3 74||<1|\|6 4b0|_|7 7|-|3r3.

Nah, in all seriousness it's not popular at all.

 

[Ieyke]

'lel wut a fail urn'

That's not leet speak.
That's idiotic txt/twitter speak and meme speak.