If you had to encapsulate the vibe, it would be "people just post shit to see if other people are as weird as they are."

It was a whole era, folks. And I don't mean "does anyone else" Reddit crap that is absurdly naive. This was way more before and way more naive than that. You didn't have any expectation that you were normal (even if you were weird). You just did it to gauge how fucking weird you were.