I just wanted to mention an interesting excerpt from an interview with Porter Robinson about Virtual Self which really speaks to me and my first experiences with the internet:

"There was a certain sense of escapism afforded by the internet that’s no longer the case. You’d join a chatroom or forum with a name that’s not tied to your identity and very little info was being collected about you. There were no algorithms trying to give you an ideal experience. Everything on the internet now is very much an evaluation of who you are and your self worth. Back then, you could depict yourself any way that you wanted."
(Source: https://www.thefader.com/2018/02/28/porter-robinson-virtual-self-interview?utm_source=tftw)