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When AIM Was Our Facebook

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the something-to-think-about dept.

Hugh Pickens writes "Gizmodo reports that there was a stretch of time in the 90s and early 00s when AOL was a social requisite. 'Everyone had an AIM handle,' write Adrian Covert and Sam Biddle. 'You didn't have to worry about who used what. Saying "what's your screenname" was tantamount to asking for someone's number — everyone owned it, everyone used it, it was simple, and it worked.' When we all finally got broadband, it was always on and your friends were always right there on your buddy list, around the clock. AIM was the first time that it felt like we had presences online, making it normal, for the first time ever, to make public what you were doing. 'Growing up with AIM, it became more than just a program we used. It turned into a culture all its own—long before we realized we'd been living it.'"

4 of 395 comments (clear)

  1. Strange by drolli · · Score: 5, Insightful

    He must have lived in a parallel universe. In the 90s it was IRC.

  2. Re:N00b.... by xystren · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Yeah... It's funny how old school becomes what us old pharts considered new. My old school online presence was a FidoNet address (1:340/17) back in the early eighties. I get tired of people thinking that online presence started when "information superhighway" became mainstream (I hated that term at the time, and still hate it now.)

    Back in the good old days, we thought 300bps was lightening fast and we loved it god dammit!

    Now get the hell off my lawn!

  3. Article is correct by tompaulco · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Just as I now shun having a facebook account, AIM was what I shunned back in the day.

    --
    If you are not allowed to question your government then the government has answered your question.
  4. Maybe for people who thought AOL was the Internet by SwedishChef · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Why is this on /.? For people who thought (like "Good Morning America") that AOL was synonymous with "Internet" it might be appropriate but for the rest of us (and the early adopters of Slashdot) it was IRC and ICQ. We laughed at AOL and most of us tried to get any friends off of it as quickly as possible. Some of us even started local ISPs just so they could actually get onto the Internet. This sort of article might be appropriate for the New Yorker or Wall Street Journal but for Slashdot it's drivel.

    --
    No one ever had to evacuate a city because the solar panels broke!