If you were a teenager in the early-to-mid 2000s with an internet connection, chances are your social life depended on a little instant messaging platform called AIM. AOL's claim to fame among young millennials was their (now drastically outdated) IM platform, with its iconic chat sounds and singular features like colorful text and intricate away messages.
It does not seem like anĀ exaggeration to say that current messaging platforms like Facebook Messenger or even Tinder would not be the same without AIM, at least insofar as how familiar most people are now with the concept of chatting online. But it has been years, and in fact almost a decade, since AIM was really a thing. So Friday, AOL announced that it will finally kill off its once popular platform come December.Ā
All good things come to an end. On Dec 15, we'll bid farewell to AIM. Thank you to all our users! #AIMemories https://t.co/b6cjR2tSuU pic.twitter.com/V09Fl7EPMx
"In the late 1990s, the world had never seen anything like this,"Ā MichaelĀ Albers, VP of Communications Product at Oath, the company that owns AOL, said in aĀ statement. "And it captivated all of us. AIM tapped into new digital technologies and ignited a cultural shift, but the way in which we communicate with each other has profoundly changed." (What an understatement.)
End of an era: AOL announces AOL Instant Messenger (AIM) will be discontinued effective December 15, 2017. https://t.co/ZhFiE9ytFU pic.twitter.com/1HF8e4oAgX
Whatever your favorite part of AIM wasāthe unbelievably important away messages, chatting with SmarterChild when you were bored out of your mind, whatever carefully curated system you invented to organize your buddy list, that iconic little amorphous yellow man logo, or logging in and out to get your crushās attentionāyou can bet your ass you miss that much simpler time, even if only a little bit.
Even if most of us have not used AIM for the better part of a decade, we can still be sad that the platform that taught us to be passive aggressive with our emo away messages is dying.
goodbye to the greatest conversation i've ever had a thousand times
hey
hey
sup
nmu
nmhttps://t.co/V1J9eGwoKl
~~**dOn't CRy bECausE iT's over, SMiLe bEcaUSe it haPpeNEd*~*~ ;) https://t.co/utKMdQvwjY
Is it weird that I havenāt used this service in almost a decade but I still find myself profoundly sad? https://t.co/whnM0RAqPg
This actually hit me kind of hard. AIM was most of my social life for a large chunk of my life. #AIMemories https://t.co/oXx82D7z6m
leaving a big, elaborate and infinitely emo away message-sized hole in my heart https://t.co/dc95DP1aQn
But one of the best, and most excruciating, parts of AIM was pinning down a fire username. Although the usernames sound dumb as all hell from where we stand now, they did mean something to all of us back then. Which is why Twitter users are taking to the social media platform to eulogize their past online lives via their usernames.Ā
What was your AIM screen name growing up? Iāll start: ashiebabiex0 pic.twitter.com/S3WFEuA2Kv
oMgiTzKaTxOx
Do you still remember your very first screen name?? Mine was āAngelndsgiseā š¤¦š¾āāļø #AIM https://t.co/NmRuBaumaT
Man. Farewell to my old AIM name, fastkid190. š¢ https://t.co/Chra8W3utZ
My first AIM screenname was āinsanemonkey2007ā because I was extremely normal. https://t.co/o0UFuwJX2U
RIP my kewl middle school screen name: QTcaitlin87 https://t.co/p3T91Bf6z8
Farewell, ponyprincess141 https://t.co/vJmWQhBYi8
My AIM username was dramaboy70 which is surprisingly still on brand for me??
I believe my screen name was guitarhero3029 https://t.co/VG8ekpWBwu
This is a sad moment. Middle school wouldn't have been the same without it! RIP angelbaby0800 (my first screenname embarrassingly enough š) https://t.co/Qjl28JhkUW
I broke up with my 6th grade boyfriend over AIM. To get back at me, he made fun of my username. I cried. #AIMemories https://t.co/xFinjHKrvq
if you cringe thinking about your first AIM username, you did it right. https://t.co/glh3mxOtKL
Just imagine what the eulogies will be like when Twitter dies...
