At the time it was written, what you now call "social media" didn't exist.  You had to subscribe to a news service and have a newsreader, then decide which groups interested you.  I saw it on rec.aviation.soaring, but it might have applied more to alt.fan.karl_malden.nose or alt.alien_vampires.flonk.flonk.flonk. 

I don't know if those groups are still active, but they weren't the kind of place you wanted to go without first disabling Javascript.  Some of the other groups were the kind you didn't want anyone else to see you looking at, the wrong person see that and you might be looking at time in the pokey.  Those groups weren't kids, and if you wanted to be flamed for real, go there.  Some of the groups, it was pretty common to crosspost to either "the nose" or "the flonk" if you really wanted to turn things into a flamefest.

Those were the days.

Doric.

The "I" in Doric is Silent.