The thread to see if any new threads begin because of what could be a response to this thread thread

Have you ever noticed how, sometimes, a thread will start, people will post a few responses and then...

Miraculously, what could have been posted to the thread as a response becomes a new thread. Then a couple of more threads will pop up in response to those. Pretty soon you have multiple threads running rampant with one or two responses and nothing else.

Has anyone else noticed this phenomenon?