Though I wasn’t in academia at the time, my memory of the event is basically the same as yours. But I wonder if younger people today, used to the current Internet-based media environment, would understand why such a hoax attracted so much attention outside of academia. My recollection is that, before the Internet, there was much more interest in and discussion of what media outlets decided to publish or not and how they slanted stories. While such interest still exists, it might seem a bit odd to someone who mainly consumes social media. The current issues around filtering and algorithms are quite different from the often intense discussions a few decades ago about how, say, the New York Times or CBS News covered particular stories.
What would happen today if someone got a similarly ridiculous article accepted by a magazine or website like Social Text? My guess is that it would not attract anything like the widespread attention the Sokal hoax did.