Logging off AIM: Our fondest AIM memories

[SOUND] I put so much time into making my profile icon's cute, my way messages were just so emo and maybe the person I'm thinking about would that this lyric from the spatial pumpking song it's about them. [MUSIC] And I had a secret one, but a secret one that was, I wanted to be so unlike me that people wouldn't recognize that was me. And it was asianbabygirl69, *xxasianbabygirl69. [LAUGH] I had jeff on AOL, and then I lost it. I was way into 60s music. I was trying to find something that wasn't my name, and wheelsoffire came up. Sure enough, it wasn't taken. Didn't even own the car. People just had 69 attached to every username. I was just like all right. I'm very uncomfortable. [LAUGH] I would sneak down from my room and I get on my family's computer and just like make sure that the sound was turned off so like [UNKNOWN] the aim sound effects would wake up my parents. So I was like 12 or 13, so my mom made it. So she made me the email, and the email is dramagirl007. [SOUND] Because I was in theater and I like James Bond, and that's what she told me why she made it. I mean, mine was writinggeek88, so I was just as intolerable. [LAUGH] You're no better. No that's terrible, I chose it for myself too so I was that terrible person. At least I didn't make mine. I still like to hear the sound effects a little bit, like there was a door opening and then you'd look and see if the girl you like was on. You would almost instantly just write everyone who wasn't idle, Sup? Sup? Sup? You'd wait a little bit cuz you didn't want to seem like you were just waiting for them to get on so you would just give it some time. Many a crush would have a special sound wave that would play. And I'd be like, Okay now be cool. Don't jump on right away. Wait. Wait. Wait like five minutes and just be like Hey, what's up? [LAUGH] And then I'd show up casually, nine minutes later to say, hey, you're online, I see you're [UNKNOWN] And that was really, really lame and pathetic, and didn't work very well. S'up, s'up, s'up, right? And then you just hear the [UNKNOWN] right? That first instance of The stuff that happens in this weird, dumb little chatbox can have an impact on the real world. You would go into school the next day and be like, that shade I tossed somebody, they found out about it. Yep. Shouldn't have told that to snowdude47. Yep. It sounds kinda said, but I do remember Smarter Child. Yeah, that robot thing, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, so I talked to a robot. [LAUGH] I played games at his. He's my friend. [LAUGH] God, it's so hidieously embarrasing. We're like, just leaving, move, like song quotes as your away message. And it was always to like that one girl. Away messages were for posting passive aggressive messages. That is 100 percent the only reason anybody sent an away message. I rember this really popular guy, who never ever talked to me, messaged me about homework, and I helped him out. But, then I felt like, You don't talk to me. in any other way. So then on my away message I kind of like hinted at that. And then he apologized. And was like, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to do that, like. I, like, I don't mean to ignore you, all this stuff. And I'm like, ye whatever you're a ****. And he read it from my away message. And then now I think back I'm like, I gave him a hard time. It was a sad emo song lyric that reflected exactly how angry you were at your best friend that day. This is about you, Stacy! These lyrics perfectly identify what I'm going through right now and you need to check my away message and read it, so that you know the agony in which I exist. Emo music was like really popular when I was in college. Or a really upbeat, positive lyric that was like I'm totally in lust with this tween boy! No, those lyrics? Yeah, it got deep. I would have documents where I would collect quotes and lyrics for any sort of mood I'm in. Like, don't bother me right now. Or whatever it might be. Maybe that guy's thinking about me. He'll see this. He'll see this away message and he'll know maybe it's I'm thinking of him maybe. [LAUGH] Also, can we talk about how important AIM was to Asian American culture? Yeah.Maybe because it was the Bay area and there was lot of different kind of Asians and then aim was like the main message system that we use and was just like someone you are like a preteen you just wanna identify with a group and it wasnt a very elegant expression somethings were like really okay like the sticky cups and the asterisks and the squiggly lines and like all that stuff.>>When I started texting a lot More. That's when I started not using him anymore. I was using text messages. My mom was texting me before I was. I'm like what are these? Why are you sending me messages on my phone? You could just send on him. She was like, no this is faster, it's easier. There really was too much time wasted on like, maybe it wasn't wasted time. Maybe it was well spent time to Be poetic through away messages. [LAUGH] [MUSIC]