Yeppers.  I have that section blocked--and for a very good reason--but I temporarily unblocked it just for the *ahem* entertainment value, and I was absolutely blown away by the volume of shitposts there, even after mprep posted the rule about no garbage "thanks", "joined airdrop", etc. posts.  I reported a whole bunch of them, because I was bored and had nothing better to do.  So yeah, that might account for a lot of them.  

When I joined bitcointalk in 2015, I don't remember there being any of those airdrops.  That seems to be a somewhat recent development, and one in which a lot of 3rd world country shitposters participate.  And, on top of that, I very strongly suspect people are using a ton of alt accounts and that some of those accounts are created for the sole purpose of bumping the airdrop threads.  That whole section is just a mess, and I would hate to have mprep's job of moderating it.

Then some of it I think is just people becoming interested in bitcoin because of its crazy-ass rise to $7000.  I'm sure that accounts for some of this, but I think it's mostly that damn altcoin token section.