A lot of what makes Comic Sans so ugly (lack of consistency or uniformity) also happens to make it more legible for people with dyslexia or similar reading disabilities.

I've been using Comic Mono as my non-code IDE font for years. It clashes obviously with the font I use for the code, which makes it easier to parse context for me.

I think there's a few reasons. It is used a lot in schools because it purportedly is good for students with dyslexia and resembles handwriting. Some use of it can be contributed to irony, but I think for a lot of laymen who don't care or know much about fonts they just think it's neat.

I think some people just get tired of the stiffness and formality of "normal" fonts. Comic Sans just screams informality.

Irony.