I remember back in the day there was no such concept on the internet. Your identity didn't translate to anything in real world. At somepoint people started to treat it as 'real world but on the computer' instead of thinking about it totally radically new way about 'self'/'identity' ect. People thought of their internet profiles as their own self. Intenet age was killed even before it started. Endless promise of internet to free human beings was thwarted by paranoia, censorship, laws ect.