One of the founders of Starfighter wanted to popularize the leading tick as the HN-equivalent of the @ on other social networks.

I read it as an homage to HN days of yore.

It's better than @! @tptacek isn't me!

I read it as a LISP-y (and therefore HN-y) version of @

I read it as an unterminated string and kept looking for the end =/

I vote for ƛ