23 Things We All Did On AIM As Kids That We Thought Were Really Cool For Some Reason

    TTYL.

    by Hannah Marder, Kelly Martinez, Daniella Emanuel

    Let us take you back to the 2000s. You'd get off the bus after school, run down the street to your house, settle in the giant leather chair in the computer room, and dial up the internet.

    You might have visited Neopets or gone onto Star Dollz, but of course, before you did that, you'd have to check AIM.

    In loving memory of AIM (RIP), here are 23 things we all were guilty of doing on the chat service:

    1. Let's not forget the essential first step to using AIM: asking our parents to get off the phone so we could get on the internet.

    AIM from nostalgia
    MOM, GET OFF THE PHONE, I'M TRYING TO CHAT WITH JAKE!!

    2. One of the most exciting moments of our adolescent lives was coming up with an AIM username. Of course, it had to have some variation of "loverrr" or "girlll" in it.

    3. And then we'd get to work friending our besties, lovingly placing them in different categories...

    Myspace Top 8??? Nah, the real friends were the ones who made it to your BFF list on AIM.

    4. ...And assigning them buddy icons.

    Tag yourself, I'm "lazy."

    5. But the TRUE personalization came when we changed our font to something really flowery and hard to read.

    Nickelodeon

    6. Or when we typed in bright, obnoxious colors just to be edgy.

    7. Or in our away messages, which were just song lyrics half the time, to show how cool we were.

    Bonus points if the lyrics were from Fall Out Boy, Panic! At the Disco, My Chemical Romance, or Avril Lavigne.

    8. And how about having a signature acronym? You were either a g2g person, or a gtg person.

    Fox

    9. It was an absolute MUST to include our middle school boyfriend or girlfriend's name with a heart in our away message to show we were taken.

    Netflix

    I still remember that like 20 minutes before I broke up with my seventh grade boyfriend, I removed his name from my away message. Some random classmate immediately messaged me to be like, "omg did u guys break up???"

    10. Let's not forget the real point of away messages: making people feel left out by listing the initials of our friend group in our AIM profile.

    MANG friend group in matching shirts on "Ginny & Georgia"
    Netflix

    11. Or subtweeting our friends by setting our away message to something really passive aggressive.

    12. But the real cool people made their away message "BRB" just to avoid talking to people.

    @nickyrojo

    13. Of course, half the time we weren't talking to our friends at all, but bots like SmarterChild.

    What a way to kill a few hours.

    14. Or strangers in chatrooms who could very well have murdered us.

    The original Omegle.

    15. If you were extra brave, one of those strangers probably became your internet boyfriend/girlfriend (and it was NOT SAFE™).

    Buster saying "you really think someone would do that, just go on the internet and tell lies?" on Arthur
    PBS

    Chris Hanson, we need you!

    16. Now, we have emojis. Back then...we had these ugly things.

    Do you still remember all these shortcuts??

    17. And AIM icons/whatever the hell these were (see "pimpette" below).

    18. Remember how we'd make our icon a doll that looked nothing like us?

    Yes, that animated Bratz doll is supposed to be me, a 12-year-old with pimples and side bangs!

    19. Sometimes, these icons gave us the courage to do the impossible: talk to our crush over AIM. Or even ASK THEM OUT.

    HULU

    I hate the number of times I did this.

    20. Remember the times we'd cover the computer screen with our hands whenever a sibling walked by, even though we were literally just typing "hahaha cool"?

    NBC

    Don't look at my screen!!!

    21. Or when your sibling forgot to log out on the family computer and you shamelessly read all their messages (and possibly used some of them as blackmail).

    Frankie on "Degrassi" reading her brother's online messages
    Netflix

    22. And the days we'd get in arguments with our parents about staying up too late chatting on school nights?

    Lionsgate

    23. I mean, we couldn't sign off without sending long goodbye messages to our friends first.

    Nickelodeon

    Ah, AIM. We do miss you so.