I went and read the forum in question. It's full of nontechnical people who are obviously teenagers. It reminds me a lot of video game forums I used to visit, with gaudy image signatures and all, except here the competition is to collect (and trade) the best "slaves" and spy on them. My guess is that these people started out with video game cheats and, without anything better to do or anyone to stop them, it spiralled into this.

One interesting tidbit is that people seem to often post stories of interactions with their "slaves". It usually involves them trying to seem powerful and scary, but at the same time there's an undertone of wanting to connect with the people that they spy on. For instance, after one guy intentionally outs himself by posting on his "slave's" facebook profile, he chats with her and keeps trying to convince her (in a threatening way) to skype him so that he can show her how to install an antivirus. There are also a lot of interactions of the "put a shoe on your head and hold this sign and I'll stop hacking you" variety.

Edit: Also, don't miss that bit at the end about the RAT software author quitting in part because of the Syrian government's use of his software against rebels. Scary stuff.