• smh@slrpnk.net
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    8 hours ago

    It’s more like Google chat or your contacts list of folks you SMS with. People you probably know from high school and nowadays you’d text, but AOL Instant Messager was free, used a device with a full keyboard, and didn’t require a cell phone which you didn’t have because it was 2001.

    • Art3mis@lemmy.world
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      4 hours ago

      I mean the first person that groomed me did it through texting, so my point still stands, but thats neat. It was a standalone device? Like those kids ir messengers from like 2008?

      • smh@slrpnk.net
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        4 hours ago

        Nah, it was an application on family computer. You know, the computer in the corner of the dining room where your parents and baby brother could read over your shoulder. (I had my own computer in my room, but it didn’t even have a network card or modem.)

        • Art3mis@lemmy.world
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          3 hours ago

          My grandma had a family computer that was loud af. My moms family computer was a lot quieter but i wasnt allowed online until i was like 11 or 12. I had a myspace for like a year before facebook happened.

          • smh@slrpnk.net
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            2 hours ago

            Ah, you’re only like 5 years younger than me. I work in a college library and the young adults keep making me feel my millenial age, so maybe I over-explained.

            Were you on dial-up, too? That dialtone just announced to everyone you were getting online, no way to hide.

            • Art3mis@lemmy.world
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              1 hour ago

              Im old enough that we had computer labs in my elementary school but i didnt really grow up with dial up, no. My early online experience was youtube, club penguin, and reallyfunarcade. But i think thats why my grandmas computer was so loud. It sounds like a Transformer with diarrhea? She got rid of it when i was like 8.