• Balinares@pawb.social
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    4 days ago

    The Internet was already a very different place back then. These days, most people are on a few very large platforms. Back then it was a lot of smaller sites and forums, whose individual vibes depended a lot on its own moderation policies.

    I spent much of that day with other players of the MUD-style game I played at the time, figuratively huddling together, sharing updates about our people in NYC as we heard from them.

    For a time, I think, people were kind of stunned. The US had thought itself invulnerable, you understand.

    But it wasn’t very long before the raging islamophobia began, and a hard turn toward the direction of fascism. But also the reaction to that. The split was stark.

    And is still going on to this day, I suppose.

    So no, people didn’t quite stop being dicks. If anything they only started dicking harder.