< How I Know It's Time to Leave
I don't blame you for feeling resentful. Your experience is why I regard social media, big forums like Reddit and Hacker News, and group chat platforms like Telegrams and Discord as "groupthink incubators".
If IRC had the same scale, I suspect it would suffer the same problems. People are tolerable in small groups. Once they become faceless crowds, they tend to put aside their humanity.
I am an introvert, I tend to be in the company of myself mostly and "socializing" has always been on my own terms. I can count on one hand and a half the closest friends I have, the rest are either acquaintances or just what I term "incidentals". The incidentals are people that are below the acquaintances and just come and go from your life at the speed of light and are never seen again. I love the small internet because of the civility and the sense of community and Midnight Pub in particular.