It is probably just title bait as you said. An 8 time rejection seems extreme to me, usually it gets harder after a rejection by a consular officer, not easier, so my own speculative, possibly needless guess (having gone through my fair share of these across many countries including the US) is that his initial applications failed for bureaucratic reasons (like a missing document), not because it was a consular decision (i.e. the consular refused him and stated a reason for denial).
My visa was rejected twice before I gave up. One of my friend was rejected 3 or 4 times before he was granted a visa, in a span of less than 1 year. I don’t think it’s out of the ordinary to see someone’s visa rejected 8 times before one was granted. The F1 student visa requirements are quite ambiguous and leave a lot of room for “interpretation”. Most are rejected because they cannot demonstrate “strong ties” to the home country to prove they will return after graduation. Now tell me how do a senior in college with no asset and no job prove they will return to the home country after 5 years of graduate school.
