How AIM taught the internet to chat
TL;DR
AIM was a pivotal early chat app that defined online communication for many in the late 1990s and early 2000s, evoking nostalgia through features like screen names and away messages, though it struggled to survive long-term.
If you were an internet user around the turn of the century, there's a good chance I could play a one-second long sound of a door opening and memories would immediately come flooding back. Memories of running home from school and logging onto AOL Instant Messenger to chat with your friends or your crush. Maybe memories of how AIM changed the way your company did business. Certainly memories of your old screen name, and the angsty song lyrics you put into your away message.
AIM was, for a time, the most important chat app on the internet. It also barely managed to continue to exist. The app was created by a semi-rogue team inside of AOL, and …