It’s the second half of your question. People have always been jerks online, but the older we get the more we seem to notice it.

When I was a kid and connecting to people online was slowly becoming more and more common i thought everyone was nice. Then i found out what “chatrooms” were and realized that’s a whole different crowd of people… Then i found out about forums and how certain ones had very nice and helpful people, and some had very know-it-all-call-you-stupid kind of people.

Now as an adult i see assholes everywhere online but have learned that if someone says something that doesn’t settle right with me it’s probably bait, and not going to get better if i engage 🤷‍♂️