People didn't curate their lives, maybe, but I relished an old-school Usenet flamewar.
Oh my God, yes!
Actually, I was never part of such. I remember vigorous, respectful exchanges of utter disagreement. But of course the flaming of which you type was never more than a thread away.
Of all things, I wound up in a Jehovah's Witnesses newsgroup because I fancied a woman at work involved in that, and I was searching for insights. It helped that I'd done some fundamentalist Christianity of my own earlier in life, and thus was easily fluent in chapter and verse.