Over the last decade, multiple universities and established academics have begun to discuss the concept of Internet Culture. Since people have begun to interact online almost as much, and often more than, they talk offline, it is inevitable that we have begun to see the rise of entirely web-based communities. These communities display all the same traits as classical geo-cultural communities, but exist entirely in a virtual space. The majority of these groups started on or expanded into large message boards. While some of the oldest sites may be gone, we can see their fingerprints on these modern groups.

The origins of Internet communications are rooted mostly in what was called Usenet, which was essentially a collection of chat rooms created to discuss specific topics or hobbies. This early style of communication was quickly adopted and simplified for the masses at the birth of America Online, the first mainstream route to the Internet. The homepage gave access to the classic chat rooms, as well as links to the newly made sites for traditional retail and entertainment companies. While some people quickly adopted the chat function of messenger, many of the original Usenet groups moved to what we now call forums.

Forums, and message boards, became the go-to place to discuss your interests, including sports, cars, home repair, or movies and television. These text forums grew with the technology and became image forums. Some of the most famous and infamous sites on the Internet are actually just traditional image forums, which include places like 4chan, Reddit, Livejournal, and Tumblr.

These locations became the centers for web communities, because they had the fewest restrictions on what could be mentioned. With frank honesty, many individuals began to grow accustomed to the personalities of other users, which lead to establishing trust and shared experiences. Shared experiences are the basis of humor, which is often the glue of a community as well as the fastest way to create recognizable cultural themes. These themes and ideas are dubbed "memes." Even though memes exist outside of the Internet, they are created and spread far more rapidly in digital media.

These groups of people slowly created spaces where they shared a sort of historical dialect based on things that happened in the past on the website. Just like how you and your neighbor may bond over complaining about loud teenagers or late trash pick-up, or by admiring each other's holiday displays, these web-based groups reminisced about memorable comment threads, hilarious YouTube videos, and pictures of cats.