It's worth keeping in mind how much more fringe the web used to be. You were almost by definition a bit of a deviant if you spent significant time online in the '90s and early '00s ("nerd" was a pejorative). People who found no acceptance in the physical world many times found like minded people online, which sometimes was a good thing and sometimes unfortunate.

> If anything, my work on 90s site archival has taught me that the web has always been a place with a lot of dark places, and the narrative that the old web was some sort of pure innocent place that became evil is not matched by evidence.

No argument there. That said, I think the big difference between the 1990's and today is that everyone knew the nefarious places and people existed but, for the most part, you actually had to seek it out. I am not suggesting that it was hard to find. Perhaps the worse of the worse was easier to find. On the other hand, it wasn't quite the same thing as algorithmic feeds. For example: I absolutely refuse to view anything remotely political on some sites (including reputable news sources or material that is clearly satire) since that is the surest way to be fed extremist crap. How far those feeds will 5ake me, I simply do not want to know.

Hey Kyle! Neocities is great