Even then there were things that were more or less known in all corners of the Internet. You could mention things like SCP, ‘Charlie bit my finger’, or My Immortal on any forum and people there would recognize it.

Now it’s all fragmented. Someone can mention something that’s a massive phenomenon in one part of the platform and no one else on the same platform would recognise it. For example, I only recently heard about backrooms and apparently it has been a thing for half a decade. That’s a long time in internet years.