Sure, Hackers came out in 1995. That's 20 years ago. And after that movie came out, if not before, using 1337 speak online was already a joke.

But the article did make the distinction that this is about the "mainstream internet". I kind of agree, but not completely.

> For the first fifteen years of the mainstream Internet, the main way language changed was at the level of the individual word.

I guess the argument there is if the impact was solely on vocabulary at first, and is now starting to change grammar. I think an earlier example of internet grammar would be verbing a noun. It is certainly not unique to the internet, but I remember it being common online in the 90s. It struck me back then as a shift in language that was spreading more quickly online than offline.