Remember when instant messaging was GREATER than text messaging? When you used dial-up and tied up your phone line just to get online and type to people in real time?
What happened to the good ol’ days of primal internet? When conversations with online strangers began with A/S/L…with hopes that you’d have a connection and convince the person to e-mail you a picture? Sometimes you still spoke to that person without a picture because they were an interesting character. There was a thrill factor. There was anonymity. There was only so much information you could find about that person on other websites. Your best bet was to stick to the primary source.
Were chat rooms your thing? Before the predators were at large. Live journals were the archaic blogs. Making the American Online (AOL) Search log was comparable to ‘Trending’ on Twitter. Times have surely changed, but in my not too distant past I was introduced to AOL. The family used a shared AOL account, and my screen name always had those stupid parental restrictions. Do those even exist anymore? My only means of getting to the chat rooms was to use someone else’s screen name, and I had no qualms about that. When I got into the chat room I would quickly set up my screen name: SINCERITY710. I loved to chat, pretend I was 18 when I was really 16. If the scanner was working, I would scan some pictures of myself and upload them, waiting for the next private chat request.
And when that window popped up…
I might would choose “ACCEPT” and respond…
18/F/Queens.
YOUR TURN! What was your screen name and why? What are some of your favorite memories from the AOL-era?
globetracer 