The pronoun, it is popular...why?
Solution 1:
This construction isn't anything new. It's just that once you notice a pattern, you keep noticing it.
This pattern is called Left-Dislocation. It consists in copying a full noun phrase (normally the subject) to the beginning of the sentence, while leaving a resumptive pronoun in the original place.
There is also Right-Dislocation, which moves the NP to the end of the sentence, for example:
- She came over for tea, my sister.
- He drove the car, my father.
These are examples of syntactic rules, or transformations.
There are lots more in English.