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LGR - AIM Retrospective: 1997-2017 (Patreon)

Published:
2017-12-02 16:19:38
Edited:
2017-12-05 15:57:21
Imported:
2021-03

Content

AOL Instant Messenger is being killed off after twenty years of service, so that means it's time for an LGR thing!

Files

LGR - AIM Retrospective: RIP 1997-2017

AOL Instant Messenger is shutting down on December 15, 2017. So let's take a trip back to the '90s and early 2000s when AIM was a major player in the IMing market worldwide! ● Consider supporting LGR on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/LazyGameReviews ● Social links: https://twitter.com/lazygamereviews https://www.facebook.com/LazyGameReviews ● Music used in order of appearance: "Rotations 2," "Midnight Breaks 1" https://www.epidemicsound.com

Comments

Anonymous

AOL is where my main username came from. I created the name BesterP12 for use in the Babylon 5 chat and that wound up being where I met a lot of friends including my partner. When we did role-playing in private chats, the multiple tabs (that may have come with power tools) helped whoever was the DM.

Anonymous

IRC was all the rage in Norway. EFNet and Undernet mostly. And I had ICQ of course, who didn't? :D Memory lane.... :D

Anonymous

I still have mine. Doesn't HAVE NUMBERS! I am keeping it for that reason. It is even my email.

Anonymous

I've been so stoked for this! I'm going to watch it as soon as I get home from hitting some Goodwills 😁

Jason Wellband

No DeadAIM? If I remember correctly, I actually bought it. It'd remove the ads and add some other features, but I don't remember what. And the chat bots.. I remember writing one with perl and the Net::OSCAR library haha

Anonymous

ahh makes remember my verry first screen name online "OSCollector" i was tinkering w/ all sorts of PC's back then and need to keep on-hold a wide array copies of windows3, 3.1 95, and 98.. and even started messing around w/ linux, got a older mac... and even started looking at these homegrown OS's i wont cry for the loss of the service neither but i will weep for the end of an Era. AIM was one of the last remaining Archaic services from Web 1.0

Lindsay Michelle

Man, where do I even start? I feel like AIM is a goldmine of memories, especially for millennials growing up during AIM's heyday. Everything you said definitely gave me nostalgia feels, especially the whole thing about selecting a buddy icon from one of those websites... oh man. I will probably be playing Emily is Away 1 and 2 this month in memory of AIM :P

evistre

I love this! Thank you. I also enjoyed Emily Is Away (& Emily Is Away Too)... but now I feel a fierce need to revive ICQ so it doesn't peace out, too. Looking forward to when this one is public so I can share it!

Anonymous

This was fantastic! Terrific look back and I'm so nostalgic towards the late 90s, it really took me back to being a young kid again. Thanks for putting this together LGR, retrospectives like this are why I'm a Patreon supporter :)

BastetFurry

I was one of those odd IRC kids, never used AIM or any other IM tool more widely.

Ossi K
>>8632084

And IRC is still one of best chat protocols available, after all why Twitch would use it for their chat if there were anything better available.

Anonymous

Wow, Emily is away... Awesome game! And great video! I never used AOL IM, I only ever used MSN, but it's nice to learn about stuff like that, even though, in a few days, it'll be history.

Anonymous

Most of my IM'ing memories are around ICQ & MS Messenger (mainly 'cause by the time AOL attempted to launch in Oz, they were too late and we were all enjoying regular ISPs) - so the take up wasn't connected to the network. But IM's as a platform… in that way, gosh, it meant so much. Limited dial-up hours meant there were only those small windows of chat time. I think seeing another service go down… certainly doesn't help this mid-30-something-dork feel even older at times. I do kind of miss those small curated network kind of days… especially seeing some of the _downsides_ to social media in Space Year 2017… that's for sure.

Anonymous

yahoo chat ftw?

Seán Byrne

My favourite chat client was MSN messenger. I miss the creative custom smileys/emoji some of my friends drew or come across. The newer chat clients such as WhatsApp and Skype don't support custom emoji.

Kris Asick

I was an ICQ person, then I started using Skype in the mid-2000s until Skype got bought up by Microsoft and they slowly started destroying every shred of perfection Skype was, but by then, all but one person I chatted with was already using Steam routinely, so I just use Steam to chat with friends now. The whole AOL thing passed me by because I was on the internet before AOL was a thing and by the time I heard about AOL the jokes about it and their gazillions of free hours discs were already rampant. ;)

Anonymous

Whoever you were chatting to was totally into it.

Anonymous

I was always an MSN guy since that's what my friends used back in 2003-6. If AIM was like a word scramble, then the custom emoticons of MSN made codebreakers of all of us.

Anonymous

Great video, it gave me nostalgia feels! I was an ICQ guy at the time, I can't forget it's iconic coo-coo. Proud to support you

Anonymous

Damn... I was just about to start using it.

Anonymous
>>8638365

With the latest version of Skype, you need a third party program to even add new phone numbers to it. Hard to imagine who thought that was a good idea.

Evan B

Loved this.. I remmeber using all of those services.. even Trillian back in the day

Anonymous

ICQ ruled in Canada but I almost shouted "yah" at my monitor numerous times for Trillian, Limewire etc.. thanks for the trip down memory lane!

Justin Dotson

This brought back all sorts of memories. I used AOL so much as a kid back in the mid to late 90s and looking at all of those buddy icons... It's like looking at Myspace but in a tiny square.

LazyGameReviews
>>8633557

Now THAT was a short-lived product. AOL just snapped it up and put it to rest so I didn't do much with it. I did however use AIM+ back then which did some similar things.

LazyGameReviews
>>8637967

I only used it when I had to, haha. Had one long distance friend who refused to use anything else.

LazyGameReviews
>>8641630

Sure thing! Seems like pretty much all of those additional programs I mentioned could be their own video someday

LazyGameReviews
>>8642573

Haha, MySpace but in a tiny square. Yeah that pretty much sums up those things. Such loud visuals in such a small area.

Anonymous

This video gave me the feels. Reminds of growing up and chatting with my friends after school on AIM. Simpler times, smartphones have really changed everything

Anonymous

Awesome video as always. For me it all started with ICQ, and oddly I can still remember my ICQ number off by heart - and I can barely remember where I left my socks.

Anonymous

man i remember using everything mentioned in your video. I remember Trillian being the first program I ever bought. AIM and ICQ were my two main chat programs. All of my friends could never choose just one to stick with.

timic83

msn was king in australia in the mid-2000s, had so much fun with winks and the built in games

Anonymous

ICQ ruled around the 90's for Malaysia, before overtaken by MSN by the new millennium.... that takes me back

Anonymous

The early 2000's were a magical time.

Joon Choi

I was an ICQ man in college but the video brought back a lot of memories. Thanks Phreakindee

Anonymous

I never used AIM much.. But I did use ICQ. But what I actually used to use before that was a program called "PowWow" and what made it a bit different is that you could actually see your friends typing in realtime, letter-by-letter.

Anonymous

Reminds me of the movie "You've Got Mail". I didn't use AIM much, but when Hanks elevated that plot to instant message, the film captured what a big deal that was at the time.

Anonymous

Pidgin was my fav, it was like a free Trillian. No network, but could chat with MSN, ICQ, IRC & AIM all at once! So futuristic. Also ah, it let me turn off all the fonts people used ^_^

Anonymous

I’d just taken a job as a network technician at AOL when AIM was released, crazy to think it’s been 20 years since we were asked to install this new software that’ll let anyone chat with you without the AOL client.

Anonymous

Ungh, AOL n00b5. ICQ is for the 13375.

Anonymous

"Some people never really let go of their AIM name and still use it to this day." ...No idea what you're talking about, no sir.

Peter Metzger

THE X10 AD MAKES ANOTHER APPEARANCE