>>8970311There were a ton of politically marginal groups on the early internet, but it was very different from 'Web 2.0', mostly because communities were made up of dozens or hundreds of people instead of millions. Most internet users were either educated professionals or hardcore Hackerman-style nerds.
It was also like this before the internet in the BBS scene. Arguably the circlejerky was worse on BBS, because most of them were self-contained communities.