> The bigger issue is most of us said/did dumb shit 20+ years ago, but luckily there was no widespread put everything on the internet movement

Well, I found some of my conversations on BBSs or Fidonet from over 25 years ago are now on the Web...

So what you say was right as long as it was indeed just 'said', but as soon as something was written and/or recorded somewhere, it may resurface on the Internet one-day, even though it was never intended to appear on the Internet.