Agreed. It was really a revelation to me. Looking back now, it's clear that I started reading it as a status seeking thing. I thought my intellectual friends (and especially girlfriends) would think it was cool that I actually read the whole thing (which nobody else in our circle had actually managed yet). But then it turned out to really affect me deeply.
I read it again about a decade later after all those games were over for me, just for myself, and loved it even more that time.
Realistically, I feel like most women (and men) have never even heard about IJ, even those who read books on a regular basis and would call themselves readers.
The only crowds I know of where IJ has truly become a mainstream piece of knowledge are /lit/, some specific subreddits, some specific twitter circles, a bunch of edgy hipsters, and HN. I bet there are more of those, ofc, but imo IJ absolutely isn’t something most people would recognize or be able to appreciate those memes about it that you shared (which I actually think are funny and hit the mark well).
Maybe I am just in the wrong circles irl, but I often enough get to hang out with people who read way more books than an average person (or me) does, and I am yet to encounter any who actually read IJ. And even those who are aware of it are relatively minor in numbers.
Whoever is reading it is eager to come of age, but is likely super obnoxious because they're not there yet. At least that's how I think of myself reading it at 25.
I hoped it was clear from my comment that this was a youthful indiscretion and should not be used as any indication that I was right about any of my motivations for this at the time :)
Though I dunno, this was a long time ago, much closer to the publication date of the book (like a decade and a half before either of these articles were published), and I'm not sure this cynicism had quite taken off yet.
Also, I'm a bit skeptical of the gender lens on this, at least at that time period. From reading these articles, I think the girls I was trying to impress were likely themselves "typical DFW asshole[s]" by the judgement of these authors. Men don't actually have a monopoly on "I am so smart" vanity (though I'd agree we seem more prone to it).
I read it again about a decade later after all those games were over for me, just for myself, and loved it even more that time.
For some people, it just really does hit a nerve!