Yes, it was magical and unbounded, but it didn't represent reality at all. You couldn't really 'share', nothing went viral, nothing had societal impact. Culture was formed by mass media, reality formed by real life interactions and connections in public spaces; the "streets" were important.

I still remember this unconscious 'reaching out' to strangers in public (now all in their little bubbles, on their phones). I still kind of find myself expecting to meet some of the online figures in real life, to ground their wild claims of importance and glamour in my physical reality (which will never happen). With these experiences, making the internet small again might be possible.

Not so for this generation: The internet can only be big. That one bad tweet is reality, right there on the phone on the nightstand, always-on. There is no way to switch it off, to walk away, to go 'outside'. To find meaning, purpose, answers they have to go out and sift through it all. To find peace, that place needs to be sanitized. Sorry, those "weird little creations" will have to go...