Correction: Pidgin shouldn't have been grouped in with the other chat services since it's not a separate protocol or anything. It's closer to Trillian in that it lumps a bunch of IM services together into one client. I did, however, use it around the same time as those I listed so it seems I got my memories mixed up, sorry! EDIT: There also seems to be confusion from saying ICQ is a later service than AOL Instant Messenger. While it's true it predated the public AIM launch by several months, AOL's Instant Messenger/Buddy List chat was released with AOL in 1989. AIM was simply the standalone version of the existing chat, which predated ICQ by 7 years.
Pidgin was/is bad, bad code. Did it ever get a rewrite? Well, anyways... A big F U to Google for giving up on XMPP! If it weren't for all that nonsense, you know, having to interact with people, like, socially, and stuff, I'd so get rid of all these annoying apps.
In later years you could log into AIM on Messages (apple) as well. In fact I just logged in. ^_^ I don't think I've used AIM in over 10 years however. AIM is basically what taught me how to type fast. Good times. ^_^ I made the coolest screen names. Even wrote a poem to go with one... Actually.. this screen name I'm currently using for TH-cam is the one I wrote a poem for. ^_^
what memories.... I remember setting up my AOL profile with special coding to make colours, special text and music lyrics.. How times have changed. I'll never forget!
I did this too! I always added poems or song lyrics to mine to match the character of my role play character. Each of my screen names were a different character. ^^
This video made me cry. I miss those days, so much, when I'd come home from school and turn on my computer, download a bunch of MP3s and listen to Shoutcast radio stations or AudioGalaxy. I'd have AIM and ICQ running, mIRC sometimes to find more MP3s and some ROMs. Hanging out in Yahoo Messenger chat rooms, roleplaying in AOL's Star Wars simming chat rooms, talking to my online girlfriend at the time (2 years)... God this was my life, this was my everyday... The internet really feels hollow anymore. Since torrenting is pretty much dead, or so unsafe that it's not even worth it to me anymore... Since there's no ISPs out there with dedicated social areas like AOL's chat rooms and Yahoo messenger's old chat rooms... Or Myspace's forums... Now all the social circles are either toxic or just so fragmented it's hard to keep your ducks in a row. Things were a lot simpler back then when it came to the internet. Everything was so much more together, unified. Now everything's so fragmented... One of the saddest things for me is that I made real friends online back then, had my first love online (we met a bunch of times, went to the prom together), had an online persona as a second life... Yea I was a geek with social anxiety, big surprise. The internet was my life. These days... I get sick of the internet, I feel lonely out there in this cyber ocean. God this nostalgia is hitting me hard, I'll shut up now.
It's so sad but true the internet has become so desolate over the years. I remember getting back in to pc gaming a number of years ago and suddenly not having friends to game with. It took me a solid year/year and a half to have a few friends. It was so hard to meet people and the ones I'd get to would often be cancerous or just not people I'd click with. Back in the aol days I'd just jump in a chatroom and find friends in minutes some I'd talk to for years.
GuanThwei LP me too. It was IRC, ICQ and LAN parties... The web 1.0 with tags in red and yellow, the first CGI, Netscape navigator, and when I left Microsoft for Linux.
The days when teens everywhere thought they were so cool when they learned basic HTML, and used it to make badass Myspace profiles that certainly crashed more than a few computers from gif and java overload.
The internet is such shit now. It used to attract creative, curious and intelllectual people... then it became accessible to every jerk with a phone and the magic was ruined. They don't even aprpeciate what they have... it was magic back then. Now it's just another thing for them to complain about while they ruin it the way they ruin everything else.
This reminds me of a couple years ago when TWISTED SISTER announced they were breaking up... and I honestly thought they had been broken up for 30 years already.
My first experience with being online was with AOL and then later chatting through AIM as a separate client. It's sad knowing an important part of my life will be no more, but I can't say I will miss it. Like most people, I ended up moving on to other things and the way we communicate has evolved, but I'll always hold on to those memories.
The sad thing is now people use stuff with less customization features like Skype or Discord. Similar thing with how BBS got replaced with sites that have more primitive layouts like facebook
PushingUpRoses There's no magic left anymore. Just cookie cutter polished garbage. No more new and exciting technology. Or maybe Im just getting old. No. the magic is gone.
Believe me I am definitely sad. All of my old girlfriends and friends screen names still exist on my friends lists through AIM and unless they're going to let us log in and see all those names and buddy icons that has over 15 years of history, it's all going to disappear forever thanks to AOL just saying nope, f it.
Only reason I stopped using it is everyone else did; periodically tried to convince people to use it again. Guess it'll have to wait until after the revolution now.
Oh man, this killed me a little inside. AIM and Yahoo messenger were a big part of my teen life. All those late night conversations with friends... Then World of Warcraft came along...
This video pulled almost every heart string for me as I too grew up and met so many people online with AOL and aim. Looking back at saved chats I realize just how crazy things were as a youngan.... Thanks for the fond memories clint!
I still have tons of Irc Logs, Its so funny and nostalgic, Chatting with friends about Party's that I went 17 years ago, Saying to girls that I'm 20(I´m 37 now) I wish I could have logs from 1997, The first year that I used Irc.
@@psychopoisonait so you are able to save the chats? So chat logs? Wow that’s cool yall have those chat logs till this day. Sorry this sort of new to me finding this info out but so interesting lol I was born in 97.
I logged into AIM like a year or so before it shut down. Looking at my old buddy list of people and seeing how not a single one of them was online was a really depressing moment. Wish I could go back to the early 2000s for 1 more day.
And it was slow as hell, even for dial up. It was a great way to share music, though. I remember writing and recording little songs for all of my friends as login notifications, I wish I still had that hard drive.
While others were out partying or hanging out in high school in the late 90s/early 2000s I was at home on my crazy weekends chatting with anyone who was online. Those sounds you played set off a Pavlovian response of having to respond to an IM. I miss those days, and the old chat rooms. When I try to find cool chat rooms like those today I only find disappointment. I haven't logged in since those classic versions shut down in 2015, but damn I do miss it. Thanks for memorializing this Clint!
Man I miss those days. I have the AIM "receive message" sound as my work email notification hahaha. You know what's funny that i was thinking about recently... back then, people put SOOOOO much effort into personalizing AIM, MySpace, Live/Dead Journals with music and fonts and buddy icons (which I forgot about until watching your video) and particularly early cellphones with ringtones... now it is INFINATELY easier to create and set custom ring tones etc. and NO ONE DOES IT! Aside from a co-worker's phone and my own, I have not heard a custom phone ring tone in a long time. Everyone just uses the pre-loaded stock ring tones. That just blows my mind. The poisonous vanity of social media is at an all time high now, yet for some reason no one personalizes ringtones anymore. Very strange! Awesome video!
I was super late to the AIM game. I had one for about 3-5 months before I abandoned it for MySpace. Can’t wait to see the video you do for Snapchat in 12 years!
1996-2003 was imo the best years of the internet.. miss the days of simplistic tech.. dialup and chat rooms , aim and yahoo IM. Was cool chatting with strangers or coming up with away messages or whatever. Miss those days..
While I never used AIM, I remember spending way, way too many hours each night after school chatting to people over MSN Messenger. While my school days weren't exactly what I'd call the highest point in my life, the amount of fun and random conversations I had via IMs I definitely remember fondly. You always know how to do a good throwback, LGR! I do actually miss MSN Messenger in a weird sorta way.
School was a nightmare for me as well. I graduated in 1992, instead of going to the ceremony. I went to see GWAR at the Lost Horizon in Syracuse. I use to skip so much school, My senior year I had to take P.E. 2 times a day for that year. I had to attend summer school every year for 3 classes. But I stuck it out for my mom instead of quitting .
Thanks for this timely video, Clint. Had no idea AIM was even shutting down until I saw this. Just decided to sign on one last time, as I hadn't signed on in years. I still have one buddy from high school (nearly two decades ago) who was signed on his very same Counter-Strike-themed screen name, haha. And it was nice seeing all the other old names on my buddy list again. It's like looking at a moment in your life frozen in time.
I was an MSNer and man, I miss it so gosh darn much! Before its death people slowly moved over to Facebook but I never felt comfortable there. It's a strange time we live in when 24 year olds can already experience trouble with going with the times ._.
It's sad to see it go, but I like that perspective that AIM has been irrelevant for so long we might not necessarily miss the chat client itself, but rather the way it connected us with friends at the time, and those "smiles enjoyed over late night conversations". I'm glad they gave us the heads up that they are taking it offline and it didn't just disappear one day. It has prompted a lot of conversation and I've been watching and reading a ton of people's stories and nostalgia about AIM, I find it really interesting. I met my wife on AIM back in the early 2000's, and I always thought that was pretty unique, though the last few weeks I've read a bunch of stories of similar situations. So cool!
The drawing and the nudge, and i remember one mod called MSN Plus that removed the nudge limit and added colored nicknames and another ton of features, that was really amazing and for me MSN Messenger 7.5 still beats the shit on Skype.
I was born in 2004 and aim still gives me nostalgia. I used my grandparents windows xp pc 24/7 whenever i visited their house, and thats what aim reminds me of lol
“Art for art's sake is an empty phrase. Art for the sake of truth, art for the sake of the good and the beautiful, that is the faith I am searching for.” ― George Sand
I've also been thinking about the aesthetic shift in usernames since AOL.. I'm glad to know I'm not the only one who looks back and notices old usernames are... off in comparison to today's usernames.
MARY SUE Usernames are an odd thing. Mine were always quite... Sane compared to that stuff... XD But then I've only really had 3 in my time online... And change happens when I find my old name is already used... It's weird going from having an uncommon name to one that is widespread on many services... Though sometimes I got the feeling it's my own old user account for which I forgot the password and associated email that was actually blocking me. XD Funnily enough when my first online username became relatively common, googling it mostly led me to porn stars... Which is weird because I don't consider that name to have been particularly feminine, nor one with connotations like that... But... Apparently I was wrong? XD Still weird googling your own username and getting some porn star in a latex bodysuit though. >__
AIM is responsible for me meeting my wife back in 2003. We've been together going on 15 years and have four beautiful kids together. I'm grateful for the impact it had on my life 😁.
As someone born in 97 it is weird to think how fast the internet evolved. By the time I was allowed online most of these types of services were at least starting to be irrelevant and newer modern services/websites like TH-cam started to take their place. Crazy to think how different my life would be if I was born a few years earlier or later.
Thank you for doing this video, Clint. For some reason, hearing your voice and getting your take on this classic piece of my childhood just helps put the old girl to rest in an official capacity. I'm gonna miss her :)
lol, i was one of the 1% on that graph from 2011. i am really stubborn sometimes and i loved AIM and refused to give it up. i kept using AIM regularly until early 2012, when the last friend who would talk to me on it was like "bro you need to download skype and stop being weird"
My closest, dearest friends, still known for many many years, was found from this program. Discord may replace and exceed the features of AIM, but I will always have a place in my heart for this gateway to online communication.
We here, people in Poland we had our own AIM-like application called Gadu-Gadu (which you can see on a chart @ 5:33). No body use that anymore. I mean, if you hear someone actually using this app, people go in deep nostalgia. That's the thing with old programs like this, nobody use them, but they sure miss them.
Hearing that creaking door open noise still gets me excited. Those were the days in my dorm room waiting to for that certain person to log on to chat with.
You completely nailed this video. It made me happy I got to experience it but also sad that it's gone (even though I haven't used it for maybe over 10 years). The good ol' days with customizing my away messages, signing online just to see is on, and competing with my friends and family on who can stay online the longest without being disconnected! Those were definitely the good ol' days. Thank you for the nostalgia trip LGR. And you're right, that screen name i use today "grtoocool" has been with me since the AIM days.
I miss MSN Messenger so much, it was so fun talking to your friends, playing games and even doing Videochat before Skype, I miss that program so much D:
Your channel is easily one of the best on youtube. I really appreciate the relaxed, educational, and fun atmosphere you have created. It's great how all you focus on is your content, no drama, no politics. And on top of that, I always walk away from one of your videos, with something new I learned. Thanks man, keep it up!
AIM's "Get File" feature was amazing and no other program has made something like it sinse then. Rather than selecting a file and sending it. You selected a folder to store your shareable files in and then gave a group on your Buddy list access to it. So they could initiate the file transfer without you needing to be there to accept anything. And files were directly sent from person to person, no intermediary. Your friends could browse your shared folders and download stuff directly from you. Downloads resume where they left off too if disconnected. Feature was removed after AIM 5.9.
I loved Trillian - much better than having two separate clients for my AOL and ICQ contacts. I can't remember if it was AOL or ICQ, but one of those companies kept making changes to its protocol to prevent Trillian from working because they wanted you to use their own client. However, the Trillian developers kept figuring out ways to work around it. My college roommate and I would converse with each other over AIM all the time - much better than turning around and using our voices.
This also created a folder in the user directory called "filelib" which I started using as a general downloads folder (before that was a common practice) and then I used as a subdirectory of my downloads folder to contain things I needed, but not right now... it lives on to this day in my downloads folder, renamed to 'acollated' - which isn't actually a word. Good times, man... where am I?
Oh Trillian.. Thats a long time since ive heard about that neat piece of software! I remember using it a ton, when i was using ICQ, IRC & MSN at the same time
What I really loved about AIM was the file sharing, you could share FOLDERS with thousands of files as big as unlimited in size and it also had RESUME DOWNLOAD!
Ah, Trillian! What a lifesaver you were - I back in the days of 192 meg of ram, and all your friends using different IM clients, it was a lifesaver! Oh and my TH-cam screenname is directly based on my old AIM screenname
AIM was such a fun feature in AOL, I remember waiting to chat with my cousins and friends who loved far. And also it was also fun playing games on AOL while you're chatting!
Man! Such nostalgia overload! I never used AOL, in fact, it wasn't popular here, but I definitely used MSN Messenger A LOT and pretty much everything in this video could also be applied to Messenger! The weird names, the colorful and angsty avatars, even the crapton of animated GIFs people loved to use and frankly were pretty cool to use! And the Comic Sans! (Good God, the Comic Sans...) I still use Messenger's sounds on my phone, that's how much I liked it back in the day! :D
Still rocking my AOL screen name to this day. I refuse to let it go, even if some ISP is also using it. Made it back in 1996, even have it as my license plate on my car. I am that much of a dork, and I don’t even care.
I'll miss it not due to its functionality, but the fact that modern IM services wont have a nostalgic feeling for people in 10-15 years time, since it wont change.
Memories make the heart grow fonder....wow...20 years. Those long nights messaging your crush or best buddies to see what the answers for the homework was...good times...and they will be missed. Thank you sir for this video.
A little sad to see AIM go... I've quite a bit of significant memories with it. From chatting with classmates, to chatting with various forum members from around the world, and to having one of my first relationships... those were some fond times. Copied my buddy list and icon before AIM shuts down for good, just to have something to look back to and remember those good times.
🎶 Memories 🎶 I still remember my ICQ number, and my AIM username. When Trillian came out I was all over that so I didn’t have to run 4-5 different clients.
Thanks for the punch in the feels. Many great (?) years of my life were spent with AIM & it was a great part of what made me who I am today. I could go on for volumes, but I'll just leave it at this: our legacy is finally passing on. AIM, you'll be missed so dearly.
Can I get everyone to agree on this one issue a lot of us had probably dealt with, that also exposed how naïve we once were? Where a so called "friend" comes over that says they need to message someone really quick and demands you give them the convenience of letting them just jump onto your AIM screenname ...and that it's okay because they'll be sure to tell this person it's them and not you....BUT the moment they have access, they're screwing around pretending to be you and harassing other people like close friends and getting you into trouble with other people.
In Czech Republic I think nobody even knew anything but ICQ. It was so serious back then... If you knew somebody and did not have him on ICQ others were gossiping you don't like each other and heck, it even started gossips about fighting each others just because they wasn't connected on ICQ. Good ol' times... I was lucky enough my parents did buy and internet connection way before it was absolutely normal and same with computer so most of the time I was the little genius tinkering with their most valuable thing and when I discovered ICQ... BOI O' BOI, my parents still must have nightmares to this day when I started writing with 10-15 people at the same time and went away for a second
TEJR69 I didn't even know AOL was a thing till a few years ago, mainly since all I did as a kid was play edutainment games on my parents PC. Also mad respect for having Ryan Martinie as your profile pic. Best. Bassist. Ever.
Cheers dude :), I love Ryan to death ... honestly when I was 4-5 years old when my brother showed me "Mudvayne" As a little kid they all looked funny to me and I've always laughed at Ryan's faces in the videoclip... Acutally it's really funny now when I remember how my brother used to call with his friend over ICQ, talking about Mudvayne, KoRn, Rammstein, SoaD, Static-X and SlipKnot all the time and I was sitting down, playing with some toys listening to this music all the time ... damn ._. 2000's was awesome
I met the love of my life in 2007 and we used to talk Everyday on Aim using our Sidekicks. Man those Away Messages were always directed to someone special!!!❤️❤️❤️
ASL?? Good times, but the one service I remember fondly was MSN Messenger...I always remember talking with this girl from uni when suddenly Heath Ledger died, and I broke the news to her...or another time I ended up talking to this young woman who was in a battered wife shelter with her kid - it seemed a simpler time, when technology was fresh and amazing..
I remember using MSN Messenger to host a group chat where we would "RP" basically DnD but without dice. Typing in what our character's were doing and saying to progress and create tales of wonder and fantasy. These would typically go all night long, and is something I remember fondly and think about when playing tabletop rpgs today! Fun video! Nostalgia strong!
Honestly I miss when communication online was done through niche forums and instant messaging mainly... Social media is great for reach I guess but it feels so impersonal comparatively.
Ah, pre-youtube internet culture will always hold a spot in my heart. Not that I don't have a lot of memories of TH-cam from my late 2000s high school days (mostly of not knowing which video was going to be a screamer prank).
Ahh, so AIM is finally going the wayside! Spent many great years on AIM and it was the #1 reason I was holed up in my room most of the time! Ahh, falling in love for the first time with that guy from California that I'd never meet, talking about angsty posts on LiveJournal, and my friend sending me random songs even though I kindly asked her to stop. And all of the roleplays! I still have archives of those saved IM Folders with (various usernames) saved in .xml that still need to have all of the usernames, timestamps fontstyles and OOC edited out. What a task! I will definitely miss AIM, though! Thanks for letting me know about its imminent discontinuation! I'm gonna have to install and use it just one more time before it goes!
Correction: Pidgin shouldn't have been grouped in with the other chat services since it's not a separate protocol or anything. It's closer to Trillian in that it lumps a bunch of IM services together into one client. I did, however, use it around the same time as those I listed so it seems I got my memories mixed up, sorry!
EDIT: There also seems to be confusion from saying ICQ is a later service than AOL Instant Messenger. While it's true it predated the public AIM launch by several months, AOL's Instant Messenger/Buddy List chat was released with AOL in 1989. AIM was simply the standalone version of the existing chat, which predated ICQ by 7 years.
Pidgin was/is bad, bad code. Did it ever get a rewrite? Well, anyways... A big F U to Google for giving up on XMPP! If it weren't for all that nonsense, you know, having to interact with people, like, socially, and stuff, I'd so get rid of all these annoying apps.
Haha as soon as I heard you say that, I popped down to the comments to see if anyone noticed and of course you immediately corrected it!
In later years you could log into AIM on Messages (apple) as well. In fact I just logged in. ^_^ I don't think I've used AIM in over 10 years however. AIM is basically what taught me how to type fast. Good times. ^_^ I made the coolest screen names. Even wrote a poem to go with one... Actually.. this screen name I'm currently using for TH-cam is the one I wrote a poem for. ^_^
'Miranda' was another one of those all in one messenger clients that I used.
Same as MIRC.
Well there goes the AOL Subscription I got someone for Christmas.
You didn't get them the 2,500 hours and free drinks coaster? Nooo!
There are people who still pay for AOL out there you know.
Yep, they've been collecting money from people who never cancelled for years.
Well AOL was still good for Windows 3.1
You don't need subscription to use free AIM!
what memories.... I remember setting up my AOL profile with special coding to make colours, special text and music lyrics.. How times have changed. I'll never forget!
I did this too! I always added poems or song lyrics to mine to match the character of my role play character. Each of my screen names were a different character. ^^
Did it come with some ugly colour shaded text to boot? (I'm guilty of this)
Those profiles were always so fun to do!
lucahjin same here!
I remember I was like 7 years old on this and you could put a wallpaper on your chat I had to Metallica 😂
This video made me cry. I miss those days, so much, when I'd come home from school and turn on my computer, download a bunch of MP3s and listen to Shoutcast radio stations or AudioGalaxy. I'd have AIM and ICQ running, mIRC sometimes to find more MP3s and some ROMs. Hanging out in Yahoo Messenger chat rooms, roleplaying in AOL's Star Wars simming chat rooms, talking to my online girlfriend at the time (2 years)... God this was my life, this was my everyday... The internet really feels hollow anymore. Since torrenting is pretty much dead, or so unsafe that it's not even worth it to me anymore... Since there's no ISPs out there with dedicated social areas like AOL's chat rooms and Yahoo messenger's old chat rooms... Or Myspace's forums... Now all the social circles are either toxic or just so fragmented it's hard to keep your ducks in a row. Things were a lot simpler back then when it came to the internet. Everything was so much more together, unified. Now everything's so fragmented... One of the saddest things for me is that I made real friends online back then, had my first love online (we met a bunch of times, went to the prom together), had an online persona as a second life... Yea I was a geek with social anxiety, big surprise. The internet was my life. These days... I get sick of the internet, I feel lonely out there in this cyber ocean. God this nostalgia is hitting me hard, I'll shut up now.
It's so sad but true the internet has become so desolate over the years. I remember getting back in to pc gaming a number of years ago and suddenly not having friends to game with. It took me a solid year/year and a half to have a few friends. It was so hard to meet people and the ones I'd get to would often be cancerous or just not people I'd click with. Back in the aol days I'd just jump in a chatroom and find friends in minutes some I'd talk to for years.
GuanThwei LP me too. It was IRC, ICQ and LAN parties... The web 1.0 with tags in red and yellow, the first CGI, Netscape navigator, and when I left Microsoft for Linux.
The days when teens everywhere thought they were so cool when they learned basic HTML, and used it to make badass Myspace profiles that certainly crashed more than a few computers from gif and java overload.
The internet is such shit now. It used to attract creative, curious and intelllectual people... then it became accessible to every jerk with a phone and the magic was ruined. They don't even aprpeciate what they have... it was magic back then. Now it's just another thing for them to complain about while they ruin it the way they ruin everything else.
It was fun but i use fb chat now
This reminds me of a couple years ago when TWISTED SISTER announced they were breaking up... and I honestly thought they had been broken up for 30 years already.
They fucking rule though. Amazing tours they went on in the end.
My first experience with being online was with AOL and then later chatting through AIM as a separate client. It's sad knowing an important part of my life will be no more, but I can't say I will miss it. Like most people, I ended up moving on to other things and the way we communicate has evolved, but I'll always hold on to those memories.
The sad thing is now people use stuff with less customization features like Skype or Discord. Similar thing with how BBS got replaced with sites that have more primitive layouts like facebook
PushingUpRoses There's no magic left anymore. Just cookie cutter polished garbage.
No more new and exciting technology.
Or maybe Im just getting old.
No.
the magic is gone.
Believe me I am definitely sad. All of my old girlfriends and friends screen names still exist on my friends lists through AIM and unless they're going to let us log in and see all those names and buddy icons that has over 15 years of history, it's all going to disappear forever thanks to AOL just saying nope, f it.
Discord is a good replacement for gamers.
Only reason I stopped using it is everyone else did; periodically tried to convince people to use it again. Guess it'll have to wait until after the revolution now.
Oh man, this killed me a little inside. AIM and Yahoo messenger were a big part of my teen life. All those late night conversations with friends... Then World of Warcraft came along...
Man, I remembered having clan/guild meetings in private AIM chat rooms too. Those were so fun.
Yahoo Messenger is dead now as well. :(
I wish this instant online messenger stayed popular
People were really interacting, bonding , making efforts to have fun be friends with each other !
@grtoocool Ventrilo! Sometimes, I'd log into that just to talk to my guildies and friends.
Hmmm you lost me at World of Warcraft
This video pulled almost every heart string for me as I too grew up and met so many people online with AOL and aim. Looking back at saved chats I realize just how crazy things were as a youngan.... Thanks for the fond memories clint!
I can say the exast same things for mIRC! Hell, I met the first girl in mIRC :)
I still have tons of Irc Logs, Its so funny and nostalgic, Chatting with friends about Party's that I went 17 years ago, Saying to girls that I'm 20(I´m 37 now) I wish I could have logs from 1997, The first year that I used Irc.
@@psychopoisonait so you are able to save the chats? So chat logs? Wow that’s cool yall have those chat logs till this day. Sorry this sort of new to me finding this info out but so interesting lol I was born in 97.
@@619G_ You could set to save in .txt the chat logs, thats on Mirc/Irc, So Every conversation I had, it would generate a .txt with the chat in it
I logged into AIM like a year or so before it shut down. Looking at my old buddy list of people and seeing how not a single one of them was online was a really depressing moment. Wish I could go back to the early 2000s for 1 more day.
I asked my girlfriend, awkwardly, out over AIM. 10 and a half years, one cross country move, three cats and one kid later we are still together.
Well we did know each other in real life. I was just too awkward to ask in person. IIRC I messaged her when I knew she was afk.
bperl1 I too have met & became friends with someone over a chat server, & I'd imagine a lot of us have as well...
Good.
4 years later, has the divorce has been finalized?
you should get around to marrying her at some point
That ICQ "Uh-oh!" noise haunts me to this day.
that and "YOU'VE GOT MAIL" twice or more in a row
i use it for the text msg sound of my phone
i still use the ICQ "AH OH!" sound as my whatsapp sound.
legends never die.
Fun fact! AIM didn't have a file size cap. It was an awesome to share large files with other people for free.
And it was slow as hell, even for dial up. It was a great way to share music, though. I remember writing and recording little songs for all of my friends as login notifications, I wish I still had that hard drive.
True. I shared discographies. Allegedly
I was today years old when I realized this.
Even discord has a file cap. Even though AIM was really sloe
I totally forgot about this. I remember trying to send a friend a song I'd downloaded for him, but it took for EVER for 4MB to transfer back then.
Rip...AIM
While others were out partying or hanging out in high school in the late 90s/early 2000s I was at home on my crazy weekends chatting with anyone who was online. Those sounds you played set off a Pavlovian response of having to respond to an IM. I miss those days, and the old chat rooms. When I try to find cool chat rooms like those today I only find disappointment. I haven't logged in since those classic versions shut down in 2015, but damn I do miss it. Thanks for memorializing this Clint!
Man I miss those days. I have the AIM "receive message" sound as my work email notification hahaha. You know what's funny that i was thinking about recently... back then, people put SOOOOO much effort into personalizing AIM, MySpace, Live/Dead Journals with music and fonts and buddy icons (which I forgot about until watching your video) and particularly early cellphones with ringtones... now it is INFINATELY easier to create and set custom ring tones etc. and NO ONE DOES IT! Aside from a co-worker's phone and my own, I have not heard a custom phone ring tone in a long time. Everyone just uses the pre-loaded stock ring tones. That just blows my mind. The poisonous vanity of social media is at an all time high now, yet for some reason no one personalizes ringtones anymore. Very strange! Awesome video!
I was super late to the AIM game. I had one for about 3-5 months before I abandoned it for MySpace. Can’t wait to see the video you do for Snapchat in 12 years!
1996-2003 was imo the best years of the internet.. miss the days of simplistic tech.. dialup and chat rooms , aim and yahoo IM. Was cool chatting with strangers or coming up with away messages or whatever. Miss those days..
I genuinely feel bad for people who were born too late to experience those early days. It was so ill, I'm glad I got to experience it.
While I never used AIM, I remember spending way, way too many hours each night after school chatting to people over MSN Messenger.
While my school days weren't exactly what I'd call the highest point in my life, the amount of fun and random conversations I had via IMs I definitely remember fondly.
You always know how to do a good throwback, LGR! I do actually miss MSN Messenger in a weird sorta way.
School was a nightmare for me as well. I graduated in 1992, instead of going to the ceremony. I went to see GWAR at the Lost Horizon in Syracuse. I use to skip so much school, My senior year I had to take P.E. 2 times a day for that year. I had to attend summer school every year for 3 classes. But I stuck it out for my mom instead of quitting .
Thanks for this timely video, Clint. Had no idea AIM was even shutting down until I saw this. Just decided to sign on one last time, as I hadn't signed on in years. I still have one buddy from high school (nearly two decades ago) who was signed on his very same Counter-Strike-themed screen name, haha. And it was nice seeing all the other old names on my buddy list again. It's like looking at a moment in your life frozen in time.
Limewire, boy. That was like having unprotected sex with the internet.
I was an MSNer and man, I miss it so gosh darn much! Before its death people slowly moved over to Facebook but I never felt comfortable there. It's a strange time we live in when 24 year olds can already experience trouble with going with the times ._.
Msn messenger so many memories
Yeah...:) RIP all old instant messengers
Kids these days won't understand the Limewire... Basically giving your PC Cancer in exchange for an MP3 File
MORe like computers got syphilis. lol
KaZaA was what the cool kids used before Limewire reared its ugly head.
r/lewronggeneration
HOW DARE YOU DISCRIMINATE MY KIDS !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! xDxD
lol
It's sad to see it go, but I like that perspective that AIM has been irrelevant for so long we might not necessarily miss the chat client itself, but rather the way it connected us with friends at the time, and those "smiles enjoyed over late night conversations". I'm glad they gave us the heads up that they are taking it offline and it didn't just disappear one day. It has prompted a lot of conversation and I've been watching and reading a ton of people's stories and nostalgia about AIM, I find it really interesting. I met my wife on AIM back in the early 2000's, and I always thought that was pretty unique, though the last few weeks I've read a bunch of stories of similar situations. So cool!
Ahhh i miss those days.
I REAALY miss MSN Messenger, specially the 7.5 version.
Rodrigo B.P *nudge*
Remember when you could draw on it? God I had so much fun with that.
The drawing and the nudge, and i remember one mod called MSN Plus that removed the nudge limit and added colored nicknames and another ton of features, that was really amazing and for me MSN Messenger 7.5 still beats the shit on Skype.
I was born in 2004 and aim still gives me nostalgia. I used my grandparents windows xp pc 24/7 whenever i visited their house, and thats what aim reminds me of lol
Lol 2004? Beta generation
“Art for art's sake is an empty phrase. Art for the sake of truth, art for the sake of the good and the beautiful, that is the faith I am searching for.”
― George Sand
I've also been thinking about the aesthetic shift in usernames since AOL.. I'm glad to know I'm not the only one who looks back and notices old usernames are... off in comparison to today's usernames.
MARY SUE Usernames are an odd thing.
Mine were always quite... Sane compared to that stuff... XD
But then I've only really had 3 in my time online...
And change happens when I find my old name is already used...
It's weird going from having an uncommon name to one that is widespread on many services...
Though sometimes I got the feeling it's my own old user account for which I forgot the password and associated email that was actually blocking me. XD
Funnily enough when my first online username became relatively common, googling it mostly led me to porn stars...
Which is weird because I don't consider that name to have been particularly feminine, nor one with connotations like that...
But... Apparently I was wrong? XD
Still weird googling your own username and getting some porn star in a latex bodysuit though. >__
when people today even USE usernames..
Mmmm right, yeah.... Who would even do that these days.
I remember my parents telling me to not tell anyone who I was back in 1998, however usernames are essential to conserve a certain dash of anonymity.
And then you look at your average Call of Duty lobby and apparently everyone is partying like it's 1999 in there.
This punched me right in the fucking face with nostalgia... Great vid
AIM is responsible for me meeting my wife back in 2003. We've been together going on 15 years and have four beautiful kids together. I'm grateful for the impact it had on my life 😁.
Ricky Meadows 😁
Smh
I’ve wanted to reconnect with so many people from aim😢
Aim needs to come back
Man I chatted up so many girls on AIM back in the day....... well..... I think they were girls.
Lol
Narrator: They were not.
Devante Weary ronjon83: * internal screaming*
16/f/cali u?
@@DevanteWeary I read this in the Arrested Development narrator's voice. But maybe that's what you were implying lol
As someone born in 97 it is weird to think how fast the internet evolved. By the time I was allowed online most of these types of services were at least starting to be irrelevant and newer modern services/websites like TH-cam started to take their place. Crazy to think how different my life would be if I was born a few years earlier or later.
Jomander I was also born in 97
Phreakindee! I'd almost forgotten that this channel used to be called that!
i gotta give LGR props for all the works he does-- those clips of AIM throughout had some very funny dialog. a good time.
Thanks!
The feels are strong. I still talk to a friend I met through AIM probably 15 years ago.
Thank you for doing this video, Clint. For some reason, hearing your voice and getting your take on this classic piece of my childhood just helps put the old girl to rest in an official capacity. I'm gonna miss her :)
lol, i was one of the 1% on that graph from 2011. i am really stubborn sometimes and i loved AIM and refused to give it up. i kept using AIM regularly until early 2012, when the last friend who would talk to me on it was like "bro you need to download skype and stop being weird"
My closest, dearest friends, still known for many many years, was found from this program. Discord may replace and exceed the features of AIM, but I will always have a place in my heart for this gateway to online communication.
We here, people in Poland we had our own AIM-like application called Gadu-Gadu (which you can see on a chart @ 5:33). No body use that anymore. I mean, if you hear someone actually using this app, people go in deep nostalgia. That's the thing with old programs like this, nobody use them, but they sure miss them.
The joy of sending your friend a string of 20 or so emoticons.
Hearing that creaking door open noise still gets me excited. Those were the days in my dorm room waiting to for that certain person to log on to chat with.
Ah yes, the 2000s era angst...
Fancy seeing you here, Billy!
You completely nailed this video. It made me happy I got to experience it but also sad that it's gone (even though I haven't used it for maybe over 10 years). The good ol' days with customizing my away messages, signing online just to see is on, and competing with my friends and family on who can stay online the longest without being disconnected! Those were definitely the good ol' days. Thank you for the nostalgia trip LGR. And you're right, that screen name i use today "grtoocool" has been with me since the AIM days.
I miss MSN Messenger so much, it was so fun talking to your friends, playing games and even doing Videochat before Skype, I miss that program so much D:
Me too :(
Your channel is easily one of the best on youtube. I really appreciate the relaxed, educational, and fun atmosphere you have created. It's great how all you focus on is your content, no drama, no politics. And on top of that, I always walk away from one of your videos, with something new I learned. Thanks man, keep it up!
AIM's "Get File" feature was amazing and no other program has made something like it sinse then. Rather than selecting a file and sending it. You selected a folder to store your shareable files in and then gave a group on your Buddy list access to it. So they could initiate the file transfer without you needing to be there to accept anything. And files were directly sent from person to person, no intermediary. Your friends could browse your shared folders and download stuff directly from you. Downloads resume where they left off too if disconnected. Feature was removed after AIM 5.9.
I remember seeing a news post where the "You've got Mail" Voice guy was a Uber driver now lol
Holy crap, you're right!
time.com/4562722/aol-voice-uber-driver/
You've got a ride.
American exceptionalism.
Well that's damn sad
I approve of the use of Nirvana lyrics in away messages.
SocialOutcastNo1, signing off.
LGR! I have the same feelings and memories with ICQ back in the end of the 90s . Thanks for this video it really brought me memories about those days!
I loved Trillian - much better than having two separate clients for my AOL and ICQ contacts. I can't remember if it was AOL or ICQ, but one of those companies kept making changes to its protocol to prevent Trillian from working because they wanted you to use their own client. However, the Trillian developers kept figuring out ways to work around it.
My college roommate and I would converse with each other over AIM all the time - much better than turning around and using our voices.
This also created a folder in the user directory called "filelib" which I started using as a general downloads folder (before that was a common practice) and then I used as a subdirectory of my downloads folder to contain things I needed, but not right now... it lives on to this day in my downloads folder, renamed to 'acollated' - which isn't actually a word. Good times, man...
where am I?
Was never an AOL user admittedly, more so MSN, but perhaps that was due to AOL not being quite so popular here in the UK.
Swear everyone was on MSN here
I read MSN and my brain immediately plays the nudge sound.
Everyone I knew in South London when on dial up used AOL including me 😉 My first experience getting online was AOL
I spent many hours on Mytheme making custom AIM skins and other graphics, and posting in the forum. Good times
Oh Trillian.. Thats a long time since ive heard about that neat piece of software! I remember using it a ton, when i was using ICQ, IRC & MSN at the same time
What I really loved about AIM was the file sharing, you could share FOLDERS with thousands of files as big as unlimited in size and it also had RESUME DOWNLOAD!
I used MSN Messenger back in the days. It was a more popular choice in Europe.
Joonas Yliaho MSN made lots of advertisement campaigns
Thanks for the trip down memory lane. This was great. I'd love to see more nostalgic communication episodes
I remember Trillian. Certainly saved having to run several clients at once.
Ah, Trillian! What a lifesaver you were - I back in the days of 192 meg of ram, and all your friends using different IM clients, it was a lifesaver! Oh and my TH-cam screenname is directly based on my old AIM screenname
Clint should totally do an old school myspace video
Armando Latour whose clint
Andy Pandy The creator of the channel. AKA Wood Grain God.
AIM was such a fun feature in AOL, I remember waiting to chat with my cousins and friends who loved far. And also it was also fun playing games on AOL while you're chatting!
I was the outcast of my group. My parents had business internet through Bellsouth starting in early 94. Everyone else had AOL and I felt left out.
Never used AIM but I remember ICQ, mIRC and pIRCh very well. So much nostalgia. Thanks for another great video.
IM evolution is pretty interesting. Back then, there was MSN Messenger, mIRC, AIM everywhere. Now, a lot of services died out or will.
Man! Such nostalgia overload! I never used AOL, in fact, it wasn't popular here, but I definitely used MSN Messenger A LOT and pretty much everything in this video could also be applied to Messenger! The weird names, the colorful and angsty avatars, even the crapton of animated GIFs people loved to use and frankly were pretty cool to use! And the Comic Sans! (Good God, the Comic Sans...) I still use Messenger's sounds on my phone, that's how much I liked it back in the day! :D
Still rocking my AOL screen name to this day. I refuse to let it go, even if some ISP is also using it. Made it back in 1996, even have it as my license plate on my car. I am that much of a dork, and I don’t even care.
oh wow, my childhood... i honestly thought it was already dead ;; AIM and yahoo messenger were so important to me as a child. a moment of silence
Shiroko Diamond Sparkle Yahoo messenger was my savior when I didn't have a cell phone to text
I'll miss it not due to its functionality, but the fact that modern IM services wont have a nostalgic feeling for people in 10-15 years time, since it wont change.
this brings me back to many nights as a kid talking to people through AIM in between playing everquest and downloading mp3s from kazaa
Kaymai i got hacked
I agree with have AOL allow the software to be open .
The chat rooms were fun. True that I met a LOT of nice people
on chat!.
I used to fake my age lol
Awwwww.... I’ll miss you AIM.... you were the best wingman 20-something me ever had.
Nostalgia one hit, KO.
Memories make the heart grow fonder....wow...20 years. Those long nights messaging your crush or best buddies to see what the answers for the homework was...good times...and they will be missed. Thank you sir for this video.
This hit the nostalgia button hard
A little sad to see AIM go... I've quite a bit of significant memories with it. From chatting with classmates, to chatting with various forum members from around the world, and to having one of my first relationships... those were some fond times. Copied my buddy list and icon before AIM shuts down for good, just to have something to look back to and remember those good times.
I wish you could do an episode talking about AOL and all the old visual basic aol warez programs, because they were so fun to mess around with.
Progz!
1:15 I looked at my system tray. OMG AIM & ICQ
🎶 Memories 🎶
I still remember my ICQ number, and my AIM username.
When Trillian came out I was all over that so I didn’t have to run 4-5 different clients.
Loved the video. Brought back so many funny and embarrassing memories. Thanks Clint :)
a/s/l?
PsychoIncarnate oh piss of
Thanks for the punch in the feels. Many great (?) years of my life were spent with AIM & it was a great part of what made me who I am today. I could go on for volumes, but I'll just leave it at this: our legacy is finally passing on. AIM, you'll be missed so dearly.
ICQ was my jam ahhhh I miss it so much
3:36 HEY you were the 100,000th visitor! Congratulations! Hope you got your reward.
I'm not crying you're crying.
Idea
AIM skin for Discord
Can I get everyone to agree on this one issue a lot of us had probably dealt with, that also exposed how naïve we once were? Where a so called "friend" comes over that says they need to message someone really quick and demands you give them the convenience of letting them just jump onto your AIM screenname ...and that it's okay because they'll be sure to tell this person it's them and not you....BUT the moment they have access, they're screwing around pretending to be you and harassing other people like close friends and getting you into trouble with other people.
In Czech Republic I think nobody even knew anything but ICQ.
It was so serious back then...
If you knew somebody and did not have him on ICQ others were gossiping you don't like each other and heck, it even started gossips about fighting each others just because they wasn't connected on ICQ.
Good ol' times...
I was lucky enough my parents did buy and internet connection way before it was absolutely normal and same with computer so most of the time I was the little genius tinkering with their most valuable thing and when I discovered ICQ... BOI O' BOI, my parents still must have nightmares to this day when I started writing with 10-15 people at the same time and went away for a second
TEJR69 I didn't even know AOL was a thing till a few years ago, mainly since all I did as a kid was play edutainment games on my parents PC.
Also mad respect for having Ryan Martinie as your profile pic. Best. Bassist. Ever.
Cheers dude :), I love Ryan to death ... honestly when I was 4-5 years old when my brother showed me "Mudvayne"
As a little kid they all looked funny to me and I've always laughed at Ryan's faces in the videoclip...
Acutally it's really funny now when I remember how my brother used to call with his friend over ICQ, talking about Mudvayne, KoRn, Rammstein, SoaD, Static-X and SlipKnot all the time and I was sitting down, playing with some toys listening to this music all the time ... damn ._. 2000's was awesome
I met the love of my life in 2007 and we used to talk Everyday on Aim using our Sidekicks. Man those Away Messages were always directed to someone special!!!❤️❤️❤️
I *LOVED* AIM :/
Talked to crushes on there all the time.
Thanks for doing this! my SN on AOL/AIM was MAGMAN4x4
ASL??
Good times, but the one service I remember fondly was MSN Messenger...I always remember talking with this girl from uni when suddenly Heath Ledger died, and I broke the news to her...or another time I ended up talking to this young woman who was in a battered wife shelter with her kid - it seemed a simpler time, when technology was fresh and amazing..
This was an excellent retrospective. Well done.
AIM has an acronym (AOL) within it self
America online instant messager
YAML ain't markup language.
HURD :
Hird of Unix-Replacing Daemons
where HIRD is a
Hurd of Interfaces Representing Depth
I remember using MSN Messenger to host a group chat where we would "RP" basically DnD but without dice. Typing in what our character's were doing and saying to progress and create tales of wonder and fantasy. These would typically go all night long, and is something I remember fondly and think about when playing tabletop rpgs today!
Fun video! Nostalgia strong!
Honestly I miss when communication online was done through niche forums and instant messaging mainly... Social media is great for reach I guess but it feels so impersonal comparatively.
Great job, man. This was well-written!
My favorite msg'n app will always be ICQ.
Holy hell, seeing that website full of icons was as if nostalgia just slapped me upside the head. I miss those days...
AIM was the shit back in the day. I remember staying up all night when I was in hs talking to my friends
Ah, pre-youtube internet culture will always hold a spot in my heart. Not that I don't have a lot of memories of TH-cam from my late 2000s high school days (mostly of not knowing which video was going to be a screamer prank).
I use to be on all of them: AOL IM, Yahoo IM, MSN IM, ICQ, IRC/Pirch, MS comic chat and Pow Wow
Did you ever use google talk?
Ahh, so AIM is finally going the wayside! Spent many great years on AIM and it was the #1 reason I was holed up in my room most of the time! Ahh, falling in love for the first time with that guy from California that I'd never meet, talking about angsty posts on LiveJournal, and my friend sending me random songs even though I kindly asked her to stop.
And all of the roleplays! I still have archives of those saved IM Folders with (various usernames) saved in .xml that still need to have all of the usernames, timestamps fontstyles and OOC edited out. What a task!
I will definitely miss AIM, though! Thanks for letting me know about its imminent discontinuation! I'm gonna have to install and use it just one more time before it goes!