The Bend1 launch was very successful, with 1000+ hn upvotes [0] and with several youtube videos with up to 1M+ views [1] [2] - that's where a lot of the popularity came from, I believe. They just recycled the Bend1 repo for Bend2 even though it's a completely different language.
[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40390287
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HCOQmKTFzYY
[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NaytZOiX3fs