Goodbye AOL Instant Messenger

As some of you know, AOL IM is going away effective December, 15th 2017. Many of us who grew up in the late 90s and early 2000s remember how much we used to rely on IM to communicate with one another- especially if those were your coming-of-age years. These were the days before text messages were replete on cell phones. If memory serves me right, cell phone texts used to cost 10 cents per message or you'd have to pay extra for phone plans to include them. Most millennials will balk at the idea these days.

4 of us decided to log back on for the last time before the service is complete taken down for a last hoorah. We discussed so many things- corny pop culture pictures, things we wished we did differently back in school, and reminisced about how many friends we made across the country that we never would have if it weren't for IM.

Here are some pictures- and captions- of the hour long throwback we enjoyed.

Robert Downey Jr. (famously known as the 'Iron Man' hero these days,) sports his 90s fashion.

Mood rings. Every high school student knew of someone who wore one of these.

N'Sync. Even back then you could tell Lance was different than the rest with his meticulously arched eyebrows.

Bejeweled glasses. Yes, this was a thing for quite a few years.

Lil Kim! In her famous (or infamous) MTV VMA look.

LOLs over whoop ass alliterations. Sorry, we're still a bunch of nerds.

Deliberating Snap Chat while bidding adieu to AOL IM. Life moves on...

Planning a get together IRL (in real life) SATC (Sex and the City) style. Acroynm throwbacks galore!

Whoop ass discussions. Unlike our IMs back then, we used several graphics to convey ideas like most of our cultural ethos does now.

SATC hair choices. Some things are better left in the past. Some, not all.

And gleaning over some oldies (like the Powderpuff Girls- or PPG if you're a diehard fan like one of us) that have taken on a more inclusive, diversified look.

Baby Phat lounge wear that all the hot, sexually-active wannabes wore to school

The first American Idol winner- a real moment like this

Dehlea magazine. They have since gone out of business.

Not to mention, Cam'ron and his pink flip phone

Some Throwback Cartoon Network shows 

Oh, Cisco. Your thong song was definitely THE spring break song.

Paris Hilton and her so early 2000s looks.

Strechy tops. These were a thing for a minute with the girls.

Why do I still love Kelly Rowland so much?

I remember these. You could throw them down a stairwell and they'd still work. Unlike our dainty I-Phones these days.

This would be a chick you'd like to cyber stalk on MySpace

And believe it or not, this was a thing with some outliers in the social high school hierarchy

Oh look, it's JLo keeping it 'real' in her 'I'm real' song. With suave LL Cool J!

As all things must come to an end, we finally closed a very long chapter in our internet history. AIM was one of the first apps to go online in 1997. It was immensely popular back then generating widespread use of many acronyms such as LOL, BRB, ROFLOL, ROFL among others that are still in use today. Thanks AOL AIM- for all the memories- good and bad. You facilitated in helping shape many an impressionable teen to who we are today.