The earliest scrawlings on the walls of Phish's online cave date to 1990, when just a dozen fans started a regular email CC-list to keep in touch. By summer of that year, about 50 people were using a mailing list (or "reflector") at "phish@world.std.com" to talk about the band. The assemblage of fans, although swelling, was small enough that most of these folks knew each other, and all about each other's offline lives - something that would change dramatically over the years.

All the same, the hallmarks of online Phish traffic certainly emerged in these nascent communities: trading of the recordings, swapping of setlists and show reviews, plans to meet up, gossip, rumors, recommendations for other bands, and general celebration of a band that was very much a celebration of music...Indeed, Phish's initial online energy was particularly instrumental in the geographical expansion of their fan base, allowing the band to take otherwise premature tours westward with the assurance that fans would fill venues far from their native New England soil.