Ask yourself, why didn't they go back farther than that?

If I'm remembering correctly, that article was basically lying by omission. If you looked at the data going back to the 90's, 97 was the worst year -- way before social media existed.

Exactly. And look at how many NPCs here jumped on the 15 minutes of hate bandwagon in these comments.

Keep this in mind whenever you notice someone being vilified on this site.