Are Hackers "In"?

Last night, Jacob (@biosshadow) was over at my house, and we got talking about TV shows, as we are wont to do. Particularly, the rise of quite a few "hacker" type shows. Halt and Catch Fire on AMC, Silicon Valley on HBO, and one other that escapes me at the moment have all either premeried recently or will soon.

Tomorrow, the game Watch_Dogs comes out, and of course I've preordered. It's a game all about a vigilante hacker running around exotic locales like Chicago, so you know it'll be good. In addition, Double Fine just put out early access to their game Hack n Slash, which is all about modifying game code on the fly.

We haven't seen any real hacker-y movies lately, other than perhaps The Fifth Estate, but I suspect there will be some popping up soon. Hollywood may still be a little gun shy after movies like Firewall, Hackers, and Sneakers years ago. Maybe they're letting TV and games take the risks first and seeing how it plays out.

With all of these things popping up, it's got me thinking. Is a sort of "Hacker Chic" coming into style? And why? I asked Jacob, his thought was that we're seeing a lot of hackers in the news, both good and bad, and that art mirrors life. Could it just be that the increase of computers in our everyday life has made people who can break them more interesting? I'm not sure, but I am sure a fan of this trend.

EDIT:

So, right after I finished writing this, I saw this article on engadget. "We're trying to be relevant..."

http://www.engadget.com/2014/05/23/watch-dogs-hacking-kaspersky/