Each week Joshua Fruhlinger contributes This is the Modem World, a column dedicated to exploring the culture of consumer technology. I've been studying online communities since 1994, believe it or not. My master's thesis was called "Escape to Cyberia: Subcultures as Agents of Change." Go ahead, make fun of me for the title. It's cool. But back then, no one -- or at least, very few people -- studied online communities as fodder for social science. I set out to prove that people could actually form social bonds an
