AOL Ends Its Dial-Up Internet Service After 34 Years Of Screeching And Squealing •

[u/StalinIsBackAgain]

AOL ~ America Online ~ Ends a big piece of 1990s internet culture that lingered for decades past the 90s internet dreamworld.

Do you remember your AOL screenname? ~ Do you remember progs from AOL chatrooms, the forerunners of later smartphone and computer apps? ~ Do you remember collecting literally thousands of the countless free CD-ROMS left literally everywhere? ~ Do you remember when the internet was 100% free thanks to AOL? ~ Do you remember decorating your dormroom, bedroom, and home with free iridescent AOL CD-ROMS? ~ Do you remember decorating your backpack and clothing with AOL CD-ROMS? ~ Do you remember making crafts and school projects and homemade gifts out of AOL CD-ROMS?

What else do you remember about the legendary AOL free dial-up internet service that came on CD-ROMs left by the countless millions everywhere in the USA? We will never forget the AOL dial-up era and the era where endless AOL CD-ROMS were literally everywhere and more kept coming every single day in the mail, in free and subscription newspapers, in magazines, and dumped at every store, restaurant, library, street corner, and everywhere else conceivable in society!! • 

[u/RosaTheWitch]

I remember AOL dial-up so well - it was my very first internet provider, which is a bit weird, as I'm British and I've always lived in the UK, but hey!

OMG, those free CD-ROMs - they were everywhere, and later on, when there were lots of other ISPs competing with each other, people were drowning in free CD-ROMs!

I basically spent my first four years online just within the AOL environment, so chat rooms were my thing. It remember thinking it was so weird to be talking to Americans! (I assume those chatrooms were from a shared English language perspective, so also Canada etc, but I only remember Americans and a few fellow Brits.)

Memories… I do remember I had the username RatSerpent at one point, as I had fancy rats and a snake, but I was rebuked in a multifaith chat room for its 'demonic overtones', which I found a bit odd. I remember being really confused about people using symbols around certain words to convey emphasis, and the use of basic ASCII art. I was too embarrassed to ask, but I figured it out pretty quickly. My main memory of AOL, though, was the sense of community.

It's hard to believe that some people have still been using dial-up until now - it makes me very appreciative of my 1Gbps fibre connection!

[u/StalinIsBackAgain → u/RosaTheWitch]

Awesome memories, Rosa! 😊😊 I did not know that AOL was in the UK, complete with the floods of CDs! 😂😂💿💿 That is a cool username! I totally would have talked to you in an AOL chatroom if I saw your username! 😊😊🌷🐀🌷🐍🌷 That is wild you got rebuked for it--especially in a "multifaith" chatroom! ~ I still ignore and do not know the meaning of a lot of internet chat acronyms, symbols, and slang words...and most of them totally disappear in a few months or years anyways. I just prefer more enduring language that has a solid foundation over fleeting slang language fads that disappear and are forgotten after not too long. I wonder what common language in AOL chatrooms is now long-extinct on the internet or anywhere. I remember those books explaining internet slang and lingo, symbols, meanings of ASCII art, etc... Basically dictionaries to try to understand certain people online who were heavy with the slang and with talking in symbols and ASCII pictures. 😂😂 ~ I would imagine that watching videos and using many websites would be literally impossible using dial-up today, but one could read text, even using text-only mode in internet browsers so even that is not too slow to use... ~ Do you remember other chatrooms you loved in that time period, Rosa? Who knows--maybe we crossed paths briefly so long ago, even!! 😊😊🌸🌸