I never had AOL as an internet service provider. I was on something one of my friends referred to as “Cowboy & Wireless”. I think back in the early 2000s users of AOL got AOL Instant Messenger bundled up with it to use as a real-time direct messenging service over the internet. Back then all you needed to contact someone was their AOL username.
That may not sound that impressive in 2025 but I assure you that back in the early 2000’s this was a bit like Willy Wonka going off and coming back with an everlasting gobstopper in his hand. Speaking to people in real-time when all you had on mobile phones was SMS messaging, very nearly amounted to a form of sorcery.
MSN messenger worked in a similar way and it was a pretty sweet thing. Unlike WhatsApp, you didn’t need to know someone’s mobile phone number or give out your own in order to communicate with someone.
One of my friends had AOL Messenger, so I downloaded it just to talk to them. It was really handy at the time because we provided each other with updates on a project we were working on. I wasn’t using it for casual conversations. It also served as a precursor for internet dating apps. Don’t believe me? Read this…
I’d never really used dating sites back then, even though they existed, other than one. I remember having really unusual conversations with people about their interests. One girl was into drawing and she’d tell me what she drew that day. Ah, the days when the internet and sincerity, with no agenda, could live together.
Anyway, once I joined Love@Lycos – a dating site I talked about in my previous post, I found people were using messenger more and more. Actually, the relationship I was talking about in my previous post also involved the liberal use of AOL IM and we had many a long chat until the birds were twittering with morning song. When people signed onto it you’d hear the sound of a door opening, which was quite exciting if you were at a loose end and it was someone you really wanted to talk to.
As Yoda Might Say, “The AIM Nostalgia Hits Hard With This One”
THAT DOOR OPENING SOUND, THOUGH!! 🙂
The only downside of it is that convos could get quite time consuming, but overall it was fun and I definitely miss the simplicity of things like this versus using mobile phones where you have to be mindful of your privacy all the time. You give out your mobile phone number these days and they’re messaging you on WhatsApp in next to no time. I always think that phones are the highest level of privilege and contact you can give someone. Sharing your number can open up a can of worms.
You also can’t block people on WhatsApp without them knowing, because your photo just greys out to them and they could be someone you’re otherwise interested in knowing. The dynamics of friends and acquaintances gets complicated by this fact. For a while I used to give people (still do sometimes) a burn phone number, but inevitably the next time I saw them they’d say they couldn’t find me on WhatsApp (lol). Personally, I prefer Telegram but nobody uses it.
Oh, to go back to an era when you could just give people a username unrelated to anything to do with your private life and chat to someone. I don’t know what the nearest equivalent of that is now, but I know one thing – I still miss AOL Instant Messenger and MSN Messenger. I wish they were still around.
This Person On Reddit Carried On Using AIM to Talk to Their Ex Until They Shut It Down (WOW)
I’m not one of these people that sits around on a phone chatting, I can’t really think of anything much worse. When I communicate with anyone on WhatsApp beyond basic replies, I screencast it to my computer so I can tap away at an actual keyboard.
Mobile phones and Facebook are a tad too invasive, but we aren’t getting rid of them anytime soon are we.
I hope one day something like AOL Instant Messenger makes a comeback in the same way that students started loving vinyl records and made them popular again.
I had some of my most interesting convos online on those messaging services and spoke to some weird and wonderful people that now probably just sit there tapping away replying to boring messages on WhatsApp or having to deal with people constantly sliding into their DM’s on places like Facebook and Instagram.
Some might call it progress, but I’d take the slower pace of something like Myspace and AOL Instant Messenger any day of the week. Nothing is a mystery anymore. Even with new people, they cross reference you with online assets these days. Everyone is an online detective.
I told someone once I don’t really use Facebook and they made all sorts of assumptions about me. Crazy really isn’t it, that we’re not afforded any real privacy in these situations.
Sometimes I fantasise about dumbing everything down to the bare minimum and throwing all but the most basic of mobile phones in the bin. However, this is now completely impossible to do in modern society and I still haven’t worked out how to solve that one yet, especially as some sites force you to use 2FA on your phone.
It’s all one big shit-show.
Take me back to the early 2000’s when everything was altogether more human and I’ll hold out some hope for something that feels fun to use again in the future. Someone will come up with something it’s just a matter of time.
I also miss the really basic sites that do what they say on their tin. The ones that prioritised user experience over everything else, so you could just enjoy yourself and connect. Now everything is filled with ads and looks cumbersome. Don’t be fooled into thinking we need all this shit, it’s just lazy design.
Minimalism is the future my friends. Out of interest I had a look on Reddit and a lot of people seem to miss these basic messenger services. Some of this will just be rose-tinted glasses and missing a certain era, but some will just miss the unintrusive fun and connection that was, in my opinion, something of a sweet spot in history.
Who Would’ve Thought A Door Slamming & Opening Would Evoke Such Strong Memories?
They don’t make nostalgia like they used to 😉 To my surprise, AOL messenger was around until as late as 2017, which is pretty mind boggling. It’s no good though, if most of the world is using WhatsApp and a pair of hipsters are still logging into a relic from a bygone era.
You need something minimalistic and cool that gains traction. Something the younger generation will buy into. Figure that out and human connection becomes a real prospect again. In the meantime, we’ll all have to put up with doom scrolling on inadequate social media sites whilst being exposed to algorithms that want to force feed ads down our necks until we buy something. We’ll also continue replying to people we don’t want to hear off most of the time on WhatsApp. Not because we want to, but out of a sense of obligation when it shows two blue ticks at their end.
Thanks for reading, and I’ll see you in the next one. I’m going to play this one out with Computer Love by Kraftwerk. They made this song before online dating sites ever existed, which makes them visionaries. Give me that computer with an internet connection, AOL Instant Messenger and a glass of wine. Fucking heaven compared with what we’ve got now (pardon the French)…