AIM: The “OG” Sliding of DM’s

PICTURE THIS: You’re finally home after a long day of 5th grade classes. After grabbing a couple of celebratory Oreos from the kitchen cabinet, you rush to the designated computer room to login to the glorious Dell desktop, annoyingly shared by everyone in the family. Finally, you double-click the yellow running-man desktop icon, and the AIM window magically appears. You login with your brilliant username that is as follows: sodapopfreak106@aol.com, and see that not only are two of your best friends online, but also your beloved elementary crush has the green dot by their username, beckoning you to chat with them. Ah, childhood romance at its finest.

This was pretty much my daily life in elementary school, so when I read this assignment I immediately knew I wanted to discuss AOL Instant Messenger because I look back at it fondly as memories of chatting with friends and crushes for hours surface. It was my first real interaction with being able to communicate with people via the internet. Even THE Mark Zuckerberg himself looks back at AIM with fondness, saying “AOL Instant messenger was a defining part of my childhood…it helped me understand internet communication intuitively and emotionally in a way that people just a few years older may have only considered intellectually.” Couldn’t have said it better myself, Mark.

So…what was AIM? (Yes, was- it sadly no longer exists). “AIM was a chat service available from desktops, mobile devices, and web browsers. You could log in with your AOL account to communicate with any of your contacts instantly” (Fisher, 2019). Basically, it was one of the first popular installments of instant messaging as we know it- before iMessage, Facebook Messenger, and Instagram DM-ing. Here’s the history of the AIM, provided by Lifewire:

• May 1997: AOL releases AIM as a standalone program for Windows
• May 2006: AIM Pages is introduced, and then shuts down in 2007; AIM Phoneline is released to let users make and receive calls, and then shuts down in 2009
• March 2008: iOS users can now install the AIM app
• April 2010: AIM comes to the iPad
• December 2010: AIM apps include ads and are now available for Mac, Android, iOS, BlackBerry, and other platforms
• June 2015: Verizon Communications purchases AOL
• June 2017: Verizon combines AOL and Yahoo into Oath Inc (later rebranded as Verizon Media)
• October 2017: It's announced that AOL will shut down
• December 2017: AIM is discontinued (Fisher, 2019)

#RIPAIM :(

AOL’s Instant Messenger was monumental in social media and web history because it made us comfortable for all the social medias that were still to come in later years. I think Aja Romano’s statement of remembrance captures it’s significance perfectly: “AIM offered us that first crucial taste of the interactive world we now occupy and take for granted. It was part of a cultural moment where its level of virtual interactivity was still new and exciting: when making friends on the internet was still a scary and exhilarating experience; when chatting with a crush for hours online was often easier than talking to them at school the next day; when that familiar sound of a door opening as a friend arrived online could perk your interest, and that familiar “new message” Ping! could trigger real emotions; when a carefully chosen username or a carefully chosen quote, in a carefully selected font, set to serve as your “Away message” could say more about your personality than anything else” (Romano, 2017). Just think how much more comfortable we are with sending people cringe-y Instagram DM’s or silly snapchats because AIM paved that road for us! I personally am thankful for the time I spent working on my online social skills- although they are hardly that impressing and likely more humbling than anything else.

Resources:

Fisher, T. (2019, November 12). What Was AIM and Why Did It Shut Down? Retrieved January 17, 2021, from https://www.lifewire.com/what-is-aim-1949607

Romano, A. (2017, December 15). Saying goodbye to AIM, the instant messenger that changed how we communicate. Retrieved January 17, 2021, from https://www.vox.com/culture/2017/12/15/16780418/aim-aol-instant-messenger-shutdown-cultural-impact

Sklar, J. (2020, April 02). AOL Instant Messenger Made Social Media What It Is Today. Retrieved January 17, 2021, from https://www.technologyreview.com/2017/12/14/67582/aol-instant-messenger-made-social-media-what-it-is-today/