The wheel turns...
Being a hacker wasn't much of a bad thing culturally baring context. Originally hackers weren't considered criminals but people with super computing powers that could be either good or bad. At least in media portrayals. In the real world of crime most hackers fell into the category of activists or people exploiting systems that shouldn't have been exploitable.
When I was a kid hacking was a defacto passtime online. Everyone did it to some degree, it was cool and an intellectually stimulating as well as enlightening exercise. Hacking was the national sport of the internet. Some people played Starcarft, some people played Runescape, but everyone hacked.
It's more in the modern era that it takes on a worse meaning more consistently because of the modern reach of technology. Historically hackers were hacking banks, governments, etc. They weren't hacking you or more specifically private individuals at scale. People in generally at global scale weren't traditionally targets of hacking.
Hacking has also taken a turn into being taken up by serious or organised crime and institutes people don't have a very high opinion of.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
