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Remembering How AOL Instant Messenger Changed Communication

On Dec. 15, 2017, a pioneer of the modern messaging movement signed off for the last time. It wasn’t a completely unexpected death by any means, but it’s one that has given those of us who came of age with the internet a reason to pause and reflect on the program that laid the foundation for how we communicate today.

Launched in 1997, AOL Instant Messenger (better known by its acronym “AIM”) was the online chat application for AOL users to connect with friends and strangers, near and far, through their personal computers. With its introduction, the internet became more than a tool; it became a place to socialize, setting the stage for today’s major social networks.

I was a dedicated user of AIM from middle school through freshman year of college, and while it’s been a decade since I last logged on, the announcement that it was being shut down this month caused tidal waves of nostalgia among my social circle. As I reminisced with friends and siblings about this revolutionary app, which instantly connected us with our friends, crushes and perfect strangers, I was reminded of its quirky and hilarious features, and the ways they integrated into our daily lives, on and off the screen.

Self expression through a screen name. Unlike Facebook, AIM didn’t require you to use your real name on your profile. Instead, your online persona was all the better if you had any sense of ingenuity. Some people used childhood nicknames, others expressed a love of a pro sports team, and the emo among us put crafty twists on Green Day and The Verve lyrics. My motorhead brothers gave a shout-out to their treasured rides (sweetchev2000, slvrchev, greenltd70) while I, the Austin Powers-loving preteen, was a “hipgrrrl.”

Instant buddies. “Hey, what’s your screenname?” I remember the moment in freshman math class when my crush leaned over and asked me that question. I jotted it down on the top corner of his notebook and that night, he became an instant addition to my Buddy List – no need for verification.

Door creaks, door slams and xylophone riffs. A recent search of “Old AOL Instant Messenger (AIM) Sound Effects” transported me back to the days when a Buddy List served as my online home. AIM’s bizarre sound effects were proof of that. Hear a door creak? Pop on over to your Buddy List to see who just signed in. Door slam? They either signed off from their own volition but more than likely got kicked off because someone picked up the phone (thanks, dial-up) or they got busted by their parents for being online too late on a school night. No matter – you’d see them at school in the morning and they’d be able to explain everything.

Away Messages. The best way to show how deep your intellect ran? Cryptic away messages. If you were a teenager, they were likely to be songs lyrics from Jimmy Eat World, Third Eye Blind, The Beatles and the Goo Goo Dolls, or the ridiculous one-liner “Deep Thoughts by Jack Handey.” They were the olden day version of status updates.

Corresponding chat times. In our household, there was one way to guarantee you wouldn’t get booted off the dial-up internet:  designated internet time or, in high school, late night chats. My siblings and I each had designated internet times that corresponded with when our friends were typically on AIM and when our mom wasn’t on the phone (see above dial-up comment).

AIM didn’t destroy our ability to communicate in-person – it just became another means of connecting with friends and, for the brave, jumping into a miscellaneous chat room and engaging in a random conversation with a mass of people. AIM connected us to the internet, for better or worse, and provided a generation of us with hilarious, awkward and memorable encounters of the online kind.

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