What was your AIM screen name?
‘Oh look ‘XoxoSexycutie420oxoX’ is on’
Follow me friends, as I take you on a trip back in time, when the POTUS used to get blown in the Oval Office, TRL was the hottest show on MTV,and whether Britney ACTUALLY fucked JT was celebrity gossip.
That time is the late 90s and early 00s. Before technology allowed you to seek out that girl you met at a party and slide up in her DMs, there was an earlier, more primitive way of creepily hitting on girls from school you barely knew. You sat down at the family PC, a large rectangular box with a TV tube monitor that sat on a desk in a room with your parents’ old photo albums. You checked to make sure no one was on the landline and fired that fucker up.
After about 15 minutes or so, when it was finally done booting up, you clicked the icon on your desktop for America Online (my parent’s were still paying for this up until a year or so ago). You typed in your username, password and listened to those sweet sweet robotic tones of your dial up modem as you were blasted onto the information superhighway at 28800 baud speed.
You checked out your buddy list to see who was on so you could strike up a convo about whatever pre-adolescent teens in the 90s and aughts talked about. Oh look “XoxoSexycutie420oxoX” is on. Maybe today is the day you make your move and ask her to see the new Austin Powers movie with you. But probably not, because you were 13, and you were a pussy.
Now, by “you” I mean “me” because I am a GSer and I was actually a teenager during those times. Most of you were still trying to master coloring inside the lines or breaking graham crackers in half. But back when AOL was a huge deal, any and everyone younger than your parents used AIM. And before Twitter and Instagram names, there were AIM Screen names. Yes, they were just as stupid back then as Twitter and Instagram names are now. Let’s check out a few AIM Screen names from your fellow students. Full disclosure: my screen name was Lo0t63. Get it. Because I make loot (not really) and my football number was 63. I was so cool.
Anuta, 26, Neuro/Behavior
“dancerella”
Jon, 27, Computer Science
“goddidlyumshis”
Corbin, 26, Mathematics
“mistertakono” “schwanendreher89”
Travis, 19, Political Science
“travshark”
Jacquie, 22, Neuro/Behavior
“nn3rdstahtus”
Cory, 28, Political Science
“coryf87”
Thomas, 26, American Studies
“icshrtppol”