I think once facebook, and the more "real identity" networks came around, that "natural" communities got destroyed. I was thinking about some of the friends I h

I think once facebook, and the more "real identity" networks came around, that "natural" communities got destroyed. I was thinking about some of the friends I had made when I was 13 that I still occasionally talk to, that I have never seen pictures of or even heard speak, that I had met online. Back then groups were formed over interests, and the interests itself could be very niche, but the people you met were also interested in what you were interested in. It was like a self selecting group of uber-friends. The only step in relationship building was really "oh you like thing? I like thing too." Relationships then were really about shared-interests. However once facebook rolled around cyber communities became more like digital archive of real lives. You don't friend someone on facebook because they had a similar interest with you (most of the time), you friend people that you had some in-life experience with. Now internet relationships are now really about shared-experiences. Another way to look at it is if imagine you went to a bar by yourself, and everyone else in the bar came alone. You might imagine eventually people would group themselves by similar interests (although certain human dynamics might lead people to group with other people visually similar to themselves.) In the post-facebook era its the same setup, but this time everyone bring 8-12 of their high school friends. Your high school friends may have not been had as much deep rooted interest in AstroMUD, but they are generally all-around ok people. At the end of the day you are really only together because you went to the same high school, and weren't assholes to one another.