[♪ IM Receive SFX ♪]

After 20 years of service, AOL Instant Messenger, or AIM,

finally shuts down for good on December 15, 2017.

[♪ IM Send SFX ♪]

[♪ AIM Close SFX ♪]

The iconic running man will finally stop running,

and let's be honest, that guy needed a break, seeing as AIM's once highly appealing functionality

is now included in nearly every social media service and communications app out there.

But, back when it launched in May of 1997, AOL Instant Messenger was an instant hit!

A lot of this was due to the fact that the Internet service it launched under, America Online, was massive,

with over 8 million monthly subscribers at the time.

But with the original release of AIM, you no longer needed an AOL subscription to chat.

Originally, AOL's Instant Messenger was simply a built-in feature of the America Online desktop software,

released in 1989.

It lets you use the communication protocol known as OSCAR,

or "Open System for Communication in Real time," to type back and forth with other AOL subscribers,

although the same protocol was also used in later services such as ICQ and Apple iChat,

so the underlying tech is not exclusive to AIM in this respect.

[♪ "Uh-Oh!" SFX ♪]

It's also worth noting that AIM was similar to and containted features from

AOL's once popular chat rooms, even though it remained a distinct service.

Chat rooms were often centered around discussing a certain topic,

where anything you typed would be visible to the group.

But with Instant Messenger, what you typed wasn't public for an entire chatroom to see, it was all private.

As long as you signed up for a free account and downloaded the AIM client,

you could communicate with anyone who had an AIM or AOL screen name.

[♪ Ring SFX ♪]

And man, those screen names!

They were barely legible and often embarrassing in retrospect,

and they made your Buddy Lists look like a word scramble of the highest order.

But sometimes, they became so synonymous with your online persona, that you just never gave it up!

Like in my case, where my AIM screen name was phreakindee,

the same user name I chose for this very YouTube channel back in 2006,

although it was stylized "Phreaaake Indaaee" back when I chose it 15 years ago because...

it was 2002 and that's just what you did.

...heh.

I also remember what a big deal it was to have a unique Buddy Icon,

which was perhaps the first time I chose an avatar to represent myself online.

Super commonplace now, but back then, the idea was rather fresh.

It was all the rage to use a Buddy Icon with your favorite band, movie, TV show, quotation, or whatever else.

These were available through AIM itself,

but you could also make your own or download them for free on massive Buddy Icon websites,

and WOW, are these a time capsule of animated teenage angst and sparkly adolescent sentiments.

But even further down the rabbit hole of AIM self-expression

were the Profile Pages and the Away Messages.

Ah, the carefully crafted and retrospectively pointless walls of text I wrote, often filled with cryptic song lyrics,

copious ellipses, and more than a few passive-aggressive words directed towards like, one person in particular.

Another feature of AIM that I used quite a bit was the integrated file sharing.

In the days before copious free cloud storage, sending files directly over email or FTP was often a pain,

especially if you just wanted to share a single image or a downloaded MP3, and, let's be honest,

the latter is what it was most of the time.

After all, the peak of AIM happily coincided with the peak of peer-to-peer file sharing programs like

Napster,

Morpheus,

and Limewire.

But as fun as these extra features were, the real star attraction of AIM was the chat window itself.

Unfortunately, the classic versions of the program I used to use back in the day were shut down back in 2015,

so I can't show them here.

But the basic idea is the same as the final version you're seeing, including the custom fonts and text backgrounds.

I don't remember anyone sticking to the default typeface.

It was all about choosing a custom font and color scheme that represented *you*.

Half the time the chosen combination made you want to gouge your eyes out, but dangit, we did it anyway.

Regardless of color clash,

it was just awesome to be able to chat on a computer with your friends, family, and colleagues worldwide in real time.

Granted, this wasn't exclusive to AOL Instant Messenger,

and AIM wasn't always even the most popular option, especially outside of the USA.

Heck, even just among my circle of friends, I remember using ICQ,

MSN Messenger,

IRC,

Yahoo! Messenger,

Pidgin,

and who knows what else!

Not to mention programs like Trillian, which sought to combine a variety of clients under one roof, including AIM.

It also included extra features and enhancements,

and in particular, the custom skins stood out to me, since it was something I could create myself.

But, whatever service or client you used,

Instant Messaging back then provided communication that was faster and more engaging than email,

while also being less formal than a phone call.

And in the days before omnipresent cell phones and unlimited texting,

IM'ing was the method of choice for me to talk to my friends wherever they were.

And sure, AIM wasn't the only game in town, but it was certainly the one I spent the most time with,

and have the fondest memories of using.

And now that AIM is shutting down for good in 2017, I feel myself a bit saddened.

Not because I'll miss the functionality, because, it's been replaced by a wide array of more convenient apps and services.

Hardly anyone has had the need or desire to use AIM in years,

and by 2011, it only held less than 1% of the entire Instant Messenger market worldwiide.

So no, what I'll genuinely miss though, are the smiles enjoyed over late night conversations, and...

that feeling of excitement every time I logged on back in the day.

To someone who often felt awkward getting to know people face to face,

AIM helped lead to all sorts of friendships, relationships, and experiences that I otherwise might not have had.

So even though I won't miss the service itself,

I'm grateful it existed when it did, and... I'm just happy to have the memories.

But there are some taking it even further,

by making games that mimic the AIM experience, like Emily Is Away.

So while AIM might be dead and gone, its legacy continues to live on,

either through creative virtual recreations

or the countless Instant Messaging apps available on practically every device today

that owes at least a little bit of its existence to AOL Instant Messenger.

And if you enjoy this episode of LGR, then perhaps you'd like to see some of my others.

I like doing these retrospectives

whenever I can as well as all sorts of other videos on hardware and software, both new and old.

And as always, thank you very much for watching LGR!