I want to say I was online by default earlier, just because I preferred that life to my offline one, but online clearly hadn't become 'real life' yet. Sure, your online life could affect your offline life if you really wanted to make it happen or were just really dumb, but whatever did happen online, it could be brushed off and you could Just™ wash your hands of whatever happened and go and do something else, be that play a different game, browse a different forum, or just log off.

Saying that what happens on the internet doesn't actually matter nowadays is clearly untrue given even just the most cursory look at the state of the world today.