The last message sent on AIM
In the early 2000s social media sites like Facebook and Twitter weren’t commonplace yet. Even text messages, at ten cents each, were something to be rationed. For many teenagers the primary means of communication outside school was AOL Instant Messenger (AIM). So when it was announced in October that they were shutting down AIM after 20 years, I felt a wave of nostalgia for the messaging app of my youth.