I was your age in 2003. Barely anyone had cellphones let alone smartphones (which didn't come out for years later). Internet was still the domain of nerds and shut-ins. There weren't very many attention whore women, and most guys would call them out and troll them, mostly women and normies actually were on the fringes of the internet rather than the reverse as it is now (where like 99% of internet traffic is consolidated onto a handful of sites like facebook, twitter, instagram, reddit). I used to go to a LAN center for gaming back then, nowadays kids watch other people play video games. I didn't even care about being an incel back then, or "permavirgin" rather.
