Why is scholars mate been so used by some players these days....

because of people on chess.com who just do nothing but memorize opening and endgames without any tactical understanding and then expect the opponent to be clueless about something that's been going around for years. what's dumb is that sometimes it actually works and then they're like "oh wow that was easy i'm gonna do that every time", and if they lose they're like "but the endgame has nothing to do with the opening, that definitely wasn't because i tried to pull some cheap tactic and underdeveloped my pieces and turned my queen into a soccer ball. that had nothing to do with it!" and so they keep trying scholars mate.

It becomes a lot less common at 700 and more or less completely vanishes at 800. There's still an occasional silly guy who still tries it, but by that point you should have enough knowledge to know how to absolutely stomp them.

It can be used as a solid system beyond the Scholars Mate. Few people study beyond the position after e4 e5 Qh5 Nc6 Bc4 g6 Qf3 Nf6 Ne2. It has rather easy development and the queen isnt badly placed.

I never knew about that, to me scholars mate was always just a cheap trick that nobody ever fell for...

Yeah I never see anyone play that "Scholars Mate system", they just try Scholars Mate and when I kick their queen they run it around like crazy and always blunder it in the end. Fun times.

Scholar’s Mate is like training wheels — okay at first, but holding you back if you stay on them too long. It’s fun for a few games, but mastery comes from real opening principles, not quick tricks.

me too

me too

Yeah, that's completely true. The problem always comes when, like arshizz said, all the new players fall for it.