Is ACL now irrelevant? [D]

I just read in a comment of another Post that an ACL paper is considered a weak signal in the community apparently, and having an ACL first author paper is not a great plus for improving chances at finding a PhD position. Is this some kind of ragebait or is academia becoming more and more insane on a daily basis?? ​ ACL is an A+ venue. Sure, it's not as big as Nips, ICML, ICLR or CVPR, fair point, but it's not some regional B conference... ​ I know a lot of folks in "classical" CS have an issue with AI venu