I mean, the web 20-30 years ago was kinda mixed?

You had your IRC, with no message persistence, no image hosting, and no persistent account names (being able to reserve a username was an optional add-on feature). People would show they were away by changing their username from bob to bob_afk.

And it was common for people to use a nickname (for safety) and never show their face (because posting photos was a big effort). A person could be called 'cmdrtaco' or 'hemos' and that was enough, didn't need their real name or photograph or anything.

But you're right that there were also more small forums using things like phpBB which would be dedicated to a single interest, and they were much more human-scale communities. And people could have big signatures and animated GIF avatars, so you couldn't help but remember them!