Back when it was new everyone was telling kids "You know you can't believe whats on the internet, anyone can say anything!", but you actually could believe most

Back when it was new everyone was telling kids "You know you can't believe whats on the internet, anyone can say anything!", but you actually could believe most of shit online at the time, there wasn't enough audience to attract trolls or vapid popularity contest types. The people online were people that tended to ignore social and cultural convention, idealists and progressive thinkers, since the people using the internet were largely still seen as stereotypical geeks or nerds with a similar assumed social status to neckbeards or hipsters have today. However, now that the internet has gotten popular, more people seem to just assume everything they see is real, which gives advertisers, trolls,corporations, pranksters, assholes, political propaganda, and crazies the platforms they need to spew their nonsense and get the feedback and responses they were looking for, reinforcing views and beliefs in that crazy shit no matter how obscure or unusual.