![]() Worst case, the person feels rejected and slowly stops reaching out. This goes on back-and-forth indefinitely until finally somebody leaves the other person on “read.” Best case, the person is secure and doesn’t think of it. You might get nervous and put it off, then accidentally forget, then answer 72 hours later with an apology. Online conversations in 2020, on the other hand, usually involve picking up your phone randomly, noticing a new message, and deciding whether to respond right away or not. In most cases, you actually were sitting down at your computer typing, while your pal was sitting down at theirs and doing the same. Chatting really felt like you were sitting down and having a talk with someone. My social anxiety makes it hard to feel confident with starting a conversation via text, Twitter, or Instagram without an explicitly urgent purpose (or to send memes), and I never know how long to keep a chat going. You can talk to anyone, anytime, from anywhere, and you never really “sign off.” One is technically always available to DM or text, which is very anxiety-inducing for someone like me, who never wants to bother people. Modern technology, by contrast, is utterly boundaryless To me, AIM is more similar to IRL conversations than any modern way of chatting. You could even make yourself “invisible” if you wanted to sign on without being publicly available. You said “hello” to start a conversation, “G2G” to end one, and “BRB” if you had to step out for a minute (along with a clever away message, of course). You had to “sign on” to signal you were available to chat your arrival was announced to your entire buddy list with that infamous door opening sound. But AIM was distinct in one huge, important way: it helped set boundaries. You can send messages instantly, curate contact lists, and build a customized online presence. Who needs to sign onto AIM to talk to someone when you can just DM or text them? And so AIM became obsolete before officially shutting down in 2017. Since then, many other social networking sites, including Instagram, Snapchat, and Twitter, have also turned into instant messaging apps over the years. I abandoned AIM sometime in 2009, when Facebook’s popularity really took over. These tight digital friendships were a lifeboat, and they also led to many close IRL friendships (not to mention my first real romantic relationship). with an internet connection in the late ‘90s and early ‘00s.Īs someone with severe social anxiety, AIM was the perfect way to make and maintain friendships throughout middle and high school - the day and age where even the idea of approaching people in-person was the stuff of actual nightmares.Įven though I saw people every day at school, AIM was the tool that allowed me to actually get close to them, to let my personality shine through from the comfort of my bedroom. doesn’t recall their cringeworthy AIM screen name? (Mine was “kimmuh.”) While it wasn’t the first chat client ever, AIM blew up at just the right time to become the go-to instant messaging app for every young person in the U.S. AIM was the hub of my social life throughout the ‘00sįounded in 1997, AIM is one of the ancestors of modern social networking and messaging apps. ![]()
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