AOL Instant Messenger Dead at 20

AOL Instant Messenger is officially offline after 20 years.

AIM first started as a chat client for the desktop version of America Online, but it became the program we grew to love when it turned into it's own separate client in 1997.

AOL announced a few months ago they would be disconnecting the service, but the gravity of the situation didn't quite register until now.

Unfortunately we'll never see our little yellow friend again, nor hear the familiar sound of a door creaking open when a buddy comes online.

We'd like to use this as a time of reflection ... and honor the first screen names we ever registered, and which will never again be able to ask "a/s/l?"

R.I.P.

Mgym18

damndirrrtyhippie

vikinglineman68

bigmazz65

hempstar2k

chizzo40

nyquil32

naumann89

All good things come to an end. On Dec 15, we'll bid farewell to AIM. Thank you to all our users! #AIMemories https://t.co/b6cjR2tSuU pic.twitter.com/V09Fl7EPMx

— AIM (@aim) October 6, 2017

!youtube-embed(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hxVQ9rhjyTY)