>>105985381
>everyone everywhere was taught never to use their real name
Take me back.

>>715762107
At the risk of people rolling their eyes that I'm shifting it forward 5 years, I'm getting to the point where I think it's 2012 that's the fork in the road year.
>Windows 8 and iOS 7 marked the end of skeuomorphism
>Websites now fully being designed with mobile-first responsive frameworks to account for the boon in modern mobile devices
>Twitter, Facebook, Instagram reached cultural saturation
>beginning of "cancel culture" due to virality and everyone having their real name attached to their online persona
>corporatization of the internet was in full effect leading to homogenized user experiences and the end of the wild west web, everything commercialized and algorithmic

>>105859134
>It was much wilder and less safer
"Less" safe?
My nigga, only way to get into ANY sort of trouble while browsing the internet pre-social media was to either download a very suspicious file, or by being a moron and revealing your IRL name and location.

Everyone used avatars and nicknames. Everyone "RP'd". And everyone was a filthy introvert nerd IRL.

>>212527840
just know you're too young if you think that bullshit is comparable to tiktok and twitter

>>714668578
Normalfags were fine using aliases online and separating their online identity from their irl one until corpos started pushing hardcore to erase that