Throwback Article:
R.I.P. A.I.M.
The running man is dead. The running man, remember that yellow stick figure in motion who used to greet you every time you logged onto AOL Instant Messenger?
The other day, something surprisingly-insignificant happened; A.I.M. is no more. After more than twenty years, it is finally offline. Should anyone even care? Does anyone care?
I care, but I do not even know why.
Maybe it is because growing up in the ’90s, A.I.M. was an essential part of who we were. We didn’t have a smartphone — we didn’t have cell phones — but we were the first generation to grow up with the internet. We learned to use the internet in school, something our parents never did. Our jaws dropped at the dizzying speed at which America got online, and dial-up providers worked their hardest to meet the demands of a fast, democratized internet. Each month AOL seemed to release a new version… 3.0… 4.0… 5.0… 6.0….
The internet was here to stay. They promised it would change our lives — and in more ways, than we could have ever imagined — it has.
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A.I.M. was more than just a component of the internet, though. A.I.M. was our own little personal corner of cyber-space. It was here that we went, for privacy, to talk to our friends and to make new ones. We learned — how to type, how to flirt, how to cuss, and all those things now officially “defined” on sites like Urban Dictionary.
Sure, eventually, other messaging services did become available. Remember M.S.N. messenger? Or Yahoo Messenger? But it all started with A.I.M., And none of those others ever really could compete with A.I.M.s place in our hearts. A.I.M. was social networking before we ever even knew what social networking was.
In some ways, the prevalence of text communication in our lives has cheapened everything that A.I.M. was. We type words on our phones, and thanks to SMS, we send instant messages to our friends at all hours of the night. We have apps like WhatsApp, Skype, Facebook Messenger, and G-Chat. Every one of our social media platforms has direct messaging incorporated as a standard base function. It is quite clear that A.I.M. was becoming a relic of the past. As the internet has evolved beyond our computer screens to our phones, gaming counsels, and televisions — we no longer want to remain handcuffed to our computers to communicate with our friends.
But when did we stop?
Was it in one day? Did an entire generation abandon their favorite form of virtual communication in favor of another? Or was it a slow and agonizing demise, as our attention shifted to other portions of the internet, technologically superior and more evolved, leaving A.I.M. to wither away and die?
I don’t know. In fact, I find it surprising that I cannot remember when something I used on a daily basis through significant portions of my youth abruptly stopped. When did I stop that addiction? Isn’t that one defining trait of an addict? The ability to quantify precisely how long it has been since their last fix?
I find it almost poetic. On December 15, 2017, the day after the F.C.C. voted to repeal Net Neutrality — nearly killing the internet as we know it — A.I.M. went offline forever. No, in no way are these two events connected. For one thing, we do not know the repercussions of this brave, new internet in which we all coexist. But also, AOL and their software began falling into obscurity a long time ago, when they were foolish (and arrogant) enough to believe that they could contain the vastitude of the internet behind their “subscription” paywalls. I find it proof that the Universe has a twisted sense of humor and that life is dripping with irony when we look for it.
My first internet love died the very day after the internet was slain.
