Let’s admit it. We all used the popular chat room, AIM, at some point in our lives. AIM was that chat room where we could talk to our friends outside of school before we had Facebook and texting. We would be on it at one in the morning using foreign abbreviations that I couldn’t even tell you the meaning of them, now. We could make the font whatever we wanted, and it could be super big or super small. We could make it any color with any background we wanted (my preference was Times New Roman font, normal point size, and bright blue letters with a black background). We could have any notification sound we wanted. It could be a door opening when someone came online, a loud chime when someone messaged you, or my personal favorite, when I received a message or email, Phoebe Buffay from "Friends" said, “Oh, you’ve got mail!” But AIM would not be what it was without the infamous username.
Looking back at the time period of AIM, I question as to why we didn’t use our first and last name, or the first two letters of our first name attached to our last name. Though, at the time it seemed like the cool thing to do. The cool thing to do was to create a username that had something to do with what we liked or looked like. Sometimes we saw a number on the end, usually a birthday or the number on the back of the jersey of our favorite athlete. We also saw usernames that started and ended with “xo” with a number of doubled letters in between. I know that you’re all wondering what my username was so here it is.
I actually had two: My first username was Violinkid7. I played violin when I was younger and I happened to be seventh chair in the orchestra seating at that time. My second username was RyanRules104. I apparently thought highly of myself back then and wanted to announce my birthday (January 4) to the world, as well.
Thinking about the AIM era, I realized how simple things were back then. There was one popular communication outlet: AIM. Now, interacting with people in 2016 can be over text, FaceTime, SnapChat, or even sliding into those DMs on Instagram or Twitter. With all the advances in technology, the World Wide Web, and social media, there are so many means of communication. But we cannot forget the best method of communication overall: in person. It’s important to establish friendships, relationships, conversations, and even fights in person rather than behind a screen. It’s harder and can be complicated, but talking in person is the easiest way to understand someone and should never be forgotten.