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animatedglittergraphics-n-more · 4 months

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RIP, AIM: Remembering how we used to talk on the internet

A eulogy for AOL Instant Messenger, and how it changed the way we talk about games and everything else By Luke Winkie published December 15, 2017

Do you remember all the souls you've lost to the internet? Those incidental friendships, forged in IRC clients, Newgrounds forums, 40-man Ragnaros wipes, scattered across the globe when the web was young? They came into your life and played Fall Out Boy over Ventrilo. They came into your life and disappeared forever. Do you remember when snapping a selfie required a frustrating tangle of mechanical coercion, but it was worth it to show them your face? When real-life names were rarefied information shared exclusively through digital blood pacts? AIM shut down today, and the only thing I can think about is how all of those people still exist somewhere, perhaps exploring the same pit in their stomach that I am.

AIM belongs to all of us. As a pioneering force of internet communication, anyone born in the early '90s or late '80s has spent some time on the platform. As a 26-year old, I'm crucially aware that my appreciation for the prodigal instant messenger is colored by a nostalgia that has nothing to do with the service itself. It was simply the medium of choice to grouse about homework, The Decemberists, girls I liked, and the rest of my random bullshit.

But I do believe that there's a special union between AIM and people who grew up playing games, or at least came of age on the internet with people who played games. The early millennium revolutions in online multiplayer pitted us together and asked us to collaborate, so of course we carried those early internet accords to their logical extremes—talking all night in lonely chat boxes about what's cool, what sucks, and how easy it is to relate. In 2017, the web feels less like something I approach for those connections, and more like an overwhelming ennui that I'm constantly trying to outrun. Boston's Kyle Seeley nailed that feeling perfectly with 2015's Emily is Away, and this year's sequel Emily is Away Too—both of which transport you back to the spongy leather office chairs of your parents' computer room.

"AIM was primarily for one-on-one conversations between teenagers. That's how I used AIM, to have a very intimate conversation with another person. Now we have texting and Facebook messenger, but you can use those wherever you are," he says. "You can use those at a concert or while driving. But when you were using AIM, you were sitting down at a computer to talk to people. You had their undivided attention."

Emily is Away tributes AIM in the only way anyone can—spinning a yarn of disentranced high-school drama that eventually mounts into something deeply sad. The way Seeley presents an old Windows XP desktop, with the hilariously temperamental tastes of your idiot friends revealing themselves in their bios and away messages (until one day they stop logging on entirely) is immediately resonant. We've all had our Emilys. "When you have a conversation on the phone, you spend 10 minutes making small talk," says Seeley. "On AIM you talk to someone for hours. Like eight hours, 10 hours straight. You get all the small talk out of the way in the first hour, and then you're talking about these big teenager questions. Who am I? Who do I want to be? I think AIM was really good at that."

It was always difficult for me to articulate the intimacy I felt with my internet friends to my parents. There were the obvious, mechanical mistranslations; I begged my mother for early exits from countless family dinners that consistently managed to interfere with my guild's crucial Molten Core attempts. But beyond that, there was a certain shame in feeling loved and valued by people I only knew by username. A latent fear that those who did not understand might consider that affection to be false, or even sinister. That's different now, as social media has flattened out our offline/online dichotomy, but if you were on AIM, you probably remember how once upon a time those bonds felt illegal.

Years ago Nina Freeman, level designer at Fullbright and one of the foremost thinkers on love and technology, launched a flat-out covert campaign to get close with one of those friends. She spent months locked in the holy matrimony of Final Fantasy XI and nightly AIM treatises with a boy named Glenn from New York City. Eventually they met, but not before Freeman satisfied her aunt, (who she was staying with) with a fabricated narrative—Glenn was no longer a dude from the internet, now he was just an old family friend who happened to move east. "I was still in high school," says Freeman. "We made up that whole story."

That secrecy is immediately familiar to me. AIM was surreptitious, clandestine. A service that belonged to teenagers, sequestered from leering ears and concerned authority figures. As Freeman notes, a screen name was one of the few commodities a young person could fully own. A domain, an aesthetic, a communication channel you could control. It was rare to feel fully untethered from your parents, so you guarded that sliver of liberty with your life.

"I wouldn't hand out [my username] lightly," explains Freeman. "I'd only really do it with people I felt close enough with. It seems sort intimate. It was a 'thing' to add someone on AIM. The expectation would be that if we're adding each other, we're going to chat regularly.… It had a weight to it."

Cecilia D'Anastasio, senior reporter at Kotaku (and a friend of mine) went a step further. As an 11-year-old, she was already griefing in the multiplayer Flash games she shared with her friends over AIM. I don't think anything sums up the juvenile euphoria of instant messaging quite like using that power to cheat in stakes-free freeware.

"One of the Flash games I discovered was basically Pictionary, but online and with a chat room. One player would etch out an image in a Microsoft Paint-like interface while the chat would dutifully guess at what it could possibly be. It was very wholesome," says D'Anastasio. "That's why my friend June and I were passionate about cheating. We'd join a game on the same team. Over AIM, we'd tell each other what we were assigned to draw, instructing whoever was guessing to wait a solid ten seconds before revealing the answer. It was a riot. We always won."

Over the past decade or so AIM has slowly been replaced with services that de-emphasize traditional internet patois. Gchat and Twitter are all full of real names and faces instead of coded handles and custom-colored text, and logging in to most platforms scarcely takes more than a click on a Facebook icon. For the most part, this is a good thing. Anonymity is one of the scourges of online culture—a de facto institution that continues to cause a lot of people pain. Personally though, I can't help but feel like we've lost something along the way. There was a certain sublimity in typing from behind the guise of a username. It gave way to a feeling that your AIM conversations existed in some sort of permissive, alternative reality, the ideal spot to work up the nerve for swollen 3 am confessions. In 2017 there is no such thing as "IRL" anymore; your internet presence is permanently married to your day-to-day existence. Everyone on earth spends their waking hours waging wars and making peace with strangers they will never meet. It is overwhelming and insoluble, and there are moments where I wish I could get outside again.

I'm not the only person that feels this way, and there are some people working to restore the parts of the mid-aughts internet that worked. When I interviewed Jason Citron, CEO of Discord, earlier this year, he affirmed a deep appreciation for AIM, and believed that perhaps the online infrastructure might soon swing back in that direction. "When you zoom out and think about the internet and how communication is trending, there's definitely a trend to more live experiences," he said. "The internet has done so much to connect people asynchronously, so I think there's something more macro happening that Discord is taking part in. It's like we're bringing it back to how it used to be."

He's right. One of the things that's made Discord successful is how separated it feels from the rest of the internet. When you join an ultra-specific channel—for niche Hearthstone formats or fan-favorite Persona characters—it's like you're uncovering a league of obsessives that are ready to welcome you with open arms. The true solidarity of dorkiness. It's funny, but by holding back on cosmopolitan design choices (like Facebook integration or a required photo-reel), Cintron stumbled into a scheme that evokes the furtive splendor that made AIM special. This is something Nina Freeman found when she started up a Discord channel to support her growing Twitch following. "It quickly became a community, and now I have a bunch of newer online friends. I'm already cracking up at myself as I'm wondering what they look like, or what they do in real life," says Freeman. "It definitely has a similar appeal."

If Discord doesn't quite meet your personal instant messaging standards, Citron tells me that, if enough people in the community request it, he'd consider implementing the low-res AIM chimes into the service. You know, door creak, door slam, those disruptive MIDI twinkles. "To this day, that sound still triggers my desire to hop online," he says.

Kyle Seeley is doing something similar. Yesterday he released a piece of DLC for Emily is Away Too that reskins Steam Chat to look exactly like AIM circa 2006. He spared no expense; you can change your text color, drop in vintage, blocky emoticons, and create your own custom profile so you can tell the world that Warped Tour will never die. "It's a farewell to AIM," he says. As one gaming's foremost nostalgia artists, it'd be wrong if he didn't say goodbye.

Now the AIM generation is old enough to both intellectualize their wistfulness, and use the lessons they learned from the service to create for the today's teenagers. To facilitate affection and respect on the internet, to show them what it looks like. We were the first to taste love on the web, at a time when those feelings had no context or guidance, and I hope that AIM helped create a baseline for young people and the midnight communion with those across the screen. The liberation that comes with knowing that the internet friendships you cherish are just as valid and wonderful as you think they are—these stories matter, because they help light that path. Lord knows I needed it, and I'm sure you did too.

Luke Winkie

Contributing Writer

Luke Winkie is a freelance journalist and contributor to many publications, including PC Gamer, The New York Times, Gawker, Slate, and Mel Magazine. In between bouts of writing about Hearthstone, World of Warcraft and Twitch culture here on PC Gamer, Luke also publishes the newsletter On Posting. As a self-described "chronic poster," Luke has "spent hours deep-scrolling through surreptitious Likes tabs to uncover the root of intra-publication beef and broken down quote-tweet animosity like it’s Super Bowl tape." When he graduated from journalism school, he had no idea how bad it was going to get.

#rip aim #aim #aol instant messeging #old web #techcore #aim eulogy #webcore

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menextra · 11 months

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Kyle Seeley and Timothy Gilmore by Travis Chantar for Risk

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imaginationiskeyy · 1 year

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I thought some of you may enjoy my list of Father/sons and bromances whether it be by blood or not so I thought I’d share some of my favs! :D (Please feel free to add to it)

All shows are in alphabetical order.

🎥 = Movie 📚 = Book 📺 = TV series

Father and son

Shawn Davis and Vic Davis (The 2nd 🎥)

Christopher Diaz and Eddie Diaz (911 📺)

Harry Grant and Michael Grant (911 📺)

Judd Ryder and Stuart Ryder (911 Lone Star 📺)

TK Strand and Owen Strand (911 Lone Star 📺)

Alex Standall and Bill Standall (13 Reasons Why 📺)

Jack McClane and John McClane (A Good Day to Die Hard 🎥)

Lee Adama and Bill Adama (Battlestar Galactica 📺)

Jamie, Danny and Frank Reagan (Blue Bloods 📺)

Chris Halliwell and Leo Wyatt (Charmed 📺)

Josh, Brody & Bruce Murakami (Crossroads a Story to Forgiveness 🎥)

Scott Norris and Mike Norris (Crush 🎥)

Kyle Harmon and Horatio Caine (CSI Miami 📺)

Pacey Witter and John Witter (Dawson’s Creek 📺)

Jason Dixon and Mike Dixon (Disconnect 🎥)

Bradley Branning and Max Branning (Eastenders 📺)

Ben Mitchell and Phil Mitchell (Eastenders 📺)

Ephram Brown and Andrew Brown (Everwood 📺)

Bode Donovan and Vince Leone (Fire Country 📺)

Hal, Ben, Matt and Tom Mason (Falling Skies 📺)

Peter Bishop and Walter Bishop (Fringe 📺)

Indiana Jones and Henry Jones, Sr. (Indiana Jones 🎥)

Tom Garvey and Kevin Garvey (The Leftovers 📺)

Sam Monroe and George Monroe (Life as a House 🎥)

Nathaniel Bazile and Jack Bazile (Life Unexpected 📺)

Ryan Mitchell and Captain Mitchell (Power Rangers Lightspeed Rescue📺)

Shawn Spencer and Henry Spencer (Psych 📺)

Luke Morrow and Jacob Morrow Sr. (Purple Hearts 🎥)

Max Kenton and Charlie Kenton (Real Steel 🎥)

Jughead Jones and FP Jones (Riverdale 📺)

Duval Pritchard and Jimmy Pritchard (Second Chance 📺)

Clark Kent and Jonathan Kent (Smallville 📺)

Finn Scott and Damien Scott (Strike Back 📺)

Jonathan, Jordon and Clark Kent (Superman and Lois 📺)

Dean, Sam and John Winchester (Supernatural 📺)

Stiles Stilinski and Noah Stilinski (Teen Wolf 📺)

Josh Shannon and Jim Shannon (Terra Nova 📺)

Kevin, Randall and Jack Pearson (This is Us 📺)

Stephen Jameson and Roger Price (The Tomorrow People 📺)

Cordell, Liam and Bonham Walker (Walker 📺)

August Walker and Cordell Walker (Walker 📺)

Carl Grimes and Rick Grimes (The Walking Dead 📺)

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Like father and son

Evan Buckley and Bobby Nash (911 📺)

Jake Peralta and Captain (Ray) Holt (Brooklyn Nine-Nine 📺)

Spencer Reid and Aaron Hotchner (Criminal Minds 📺)

Nick Stokes and Gil Grissom (CSI 📺)

Sky and Saul Silva (Fate: The Winx Saga 📺)

Bode Donovan and Manny Perez (Fire Country 📺)

Matt Saracen and Coach Taylor (Friday Night Lights 📺)

Jess Mariano and Luke Danes (Gilmore Girls 📺)

Harry Potter and Sirius Black (Harry Potter 🎥+📚)

Steve McGarrett and Joe White (Hawaii Five-O 📺)

Peter Parker and Tony Stark (Marvel 🎥)

Timothy McGee and Leroy Jethro Gibbs (NCIS 📺)

Tony DiNozzo and Leroy Jethro Gibbs (NCIS 📺)

Christopher Lasalle and Dwayne Pride (NCIS New Orleans 📺)

Darius Tanz and Liam Cole (Salvation 📺)

Walter O’Brien and Cabe Gallo (Scorpion 📺)

Jason Hayes and Clay Spenser (SEAL Team 📺)

Sam and Dean Winchester and Bobby Singer (Supernatural 📺)

Neal Caffrey and Peter Burke (White Collar 📺)

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Brothers

Brax Wolff and Christian Wolff (The Accountant 🎥)

Luke Matthews and Holden Matthews (Beyond 📺)

Jamie Reagan and Danny Reagan (Blue Bloods 📺)

Jared Booth and Seeley Booth (Bones 📺)

Wyatt Halliwell and Chris Halliwell (Charmed 📺)

Jay Halstead and Will Halstead (Chicago PD/Med 📺)

Mike Leighton and Angus Leighton (Code Black 📺)

Robert Sugden and Andy Sugden (Emmerdale 📺)

Hal Mason, Ben Mason and Matt Mason (Falling Skies 📺)

Newt Scamander and Theseus Scamander (Fantastic beasts + where to find them 🎥)

Troy Otto and Jake Otto (Fear the Walking Dead 📺)

Tim Riggins and Billy Riggins (Friday Night Lights 📺)

Seth Gecko and Richard Gecko (From Dusk Till Dawn 📺)

Max Lawson and Jake Lawson (Geostorm 🎥)

Brad Land and Brett Land (Goat 🎥)

Peter Petrelli and Nathan Petrelli (Heroes 📺)

Brax, Heath and Casey Braxton (Home and Away 📺)

Gray Mitchell and Zach Mitchell (Jurassic World 🎥)

Joey Cassidy and Nick Cassidy (Man on a Ledge 🎥)

Loki Odison and Thor Odison (Marvel 📺+🎥)

Lorenzo de’ Medici and Giuliano de’ Medici (Medici 📺)

Don Eppes and Charlie Eppes (Numb3rs 📺)

Nathan Scott and Lucas Scott (One Tree Hill 📺)

Elijah Mikaelson and Klaus Mikaelson (The Originals 📺)

Bailey Salinger and Charlie Salinger (Party of Five 📺)

Beto Acosta and Emilio Acosta (Party of Five [2020] 📺)

Leo Corbett and Mike Corbett (Power Rangers Lost Galaxy 📺)

Brody Romero and Levi Weston (Power Rangers Ninja Steel 📺)

Michael Scofield and Lincoln Burrows (Prison Break 📺)

Thomas Peaceful and Charlie Peaceful (Private Peaceful 📚)

Luke Morrow and Jacob Morrow (Purple Hearts 🎥)

Ronan Lynch and Declan Lynch (The Raven Cycle 📚)

Sebastian and Francis (Reign 📺)

Lip Gallagher and Ian Gallagher (Shameless US 📺)

Will Byers and Jonathan Byers (Stranger Things 📺)

Jeremiah Fisher and Conrad Fisher (The Summer I Turned Pretty 📚📺)

Jordan Kent and Jonathan Kent (Superman and Lois 📺)

Dean Winchester and Sam Winchester (Supernatural 📺)

Jack Pearson and Nicky Pearson (This is Us 📺)

Kevin Pearson and Randall Pearson (This is Us 📺)

Scott, John, Virgil, Gordon and Alan Tracy (Thunderbirds 📺+🎥)

Damon Salvatore and Stefan Salvatore (The Vampire Diaries 📺)

Cordell Walker and Liam Walker (Walker 📺)

---------------------------------------

Like Brothers

Judd Ryder and TK Strand (911 Lone Star 📺)

Alex Standall and Zach Dempsey (13 Reasons Why 📺)

Oliver Queen and John Diggle (Arrow 📺)

Oliver Queen and Tommy Merlyn (Arrow 📺)

Matty McKibben and Jake Rosati (Awkward 📺)

Seeley Booth and Lance Sweets (Bones 📺)

Cory Matthews and Shawn Hunter (Boy Meets World 📺)

Jake Peralta and Charles Boyle (Brooklyn Nine-Nine 📺)

Angel and Spike (Buffy the Vampire Slayer/Angel 📺)

Kevin Ryan and Javier Esposito (Castle 📺)

Matt Casey and Kelly Severide (Chicago Fire 📺)

Jay Halstead and Greg Gerwitz (Chicago PD 📺)

John Casey and Chuck Bartowski (Chuck 📺)

Angus Leighton and Mario Savetti (Code Black📺)

Spencer Reid and Derek Morgan (Criminal Minds 📺)

Nick Stokes and Warrick Brown (CSI 📺)

Zeke Pedrad and Four (Divergent 📚)

Ephram Brown and Bright Abbott (Everwood 📺)

Barry Allen and Cisco Ramon (The Flash 📺)

Joey Tribbiani and Chandler Bing (FRIENDS 📺)

Derek Shepherd and Mark Sloan (Greys Anatomy 📺)

Harry Potter and Ron Weasley (Harry Potter 🎥+📚)

Steve McGarrett and Chin Ho Kelly (Hawaii Five-O 📺)

Steve McGarrett and Danny Williams (Hawaii Five-O 📺)

Steve McGarrett and Lou Grover (Hawaii Five-O 📺)

Caleb Odell and Ty Borden (Heartland 📺)

Colby Thorne and Dean Thompson (Home and Away 📺)

Gregory House and James Wilson (House 📺)

Eliot Spencer and Alec Hardison (Leverage 📺)

Lucifer and Dan Espinoza (Lucifer 📺)

Angus MacGyver and Jack Dalton (MacGyver 📺)

Bucky Barnes and Sam Wilson (Marvel 🎥+📺)

Steve Rogers and Bucky Barnes (Marvel 🎥)

Steve Rogers and Sam Wilson (Marvel 🎥)

Newt and Thomas (The Maze Runner 🎥+📚)

Merlin and Arthur Pendragon (Merlin 📺)

Will Lexington and Gunnar Scott (Nashville 📺)

Tony DiNozzo and Timothy McGee (NCIS 📺)

Sam Hanna and G Callen (NCIS LA 📺)

Nick Miller and Winston Schmidt (New Girl 📺)

Michael Bishop and Seymour Birkhoff (Nikita 📺)

Seth Cohen and Ryan Atwood (The OC 📺)

Prince Charming and Captain Hook (Once Upon a Time 📺)

JJ and John B (Outerbanks 📺)

Daniel Pierce and Max Lewicki (Perception 📺)

Michael Scofield and Fernando Sucre (Prison Break 📺)

Shawn Spencer and Burton (Gus) Guster (Psych 📺)

Richard Gansey and Ronan Lynch (The Raven Cycle 📚)

Nolan Ross and Aiden Mathis (Revenge 📺)

Jughead Jones and Archie Andrews (Riverdale 📺)

Michael Guerin and Max Evans (Roswell 📺)

Alex Manes and Kyle Valenti (Roswell New Mexico 📺)

Michael Guerin and Max Evans (Roswell New Mexico 📺)

Liam Henstridge and Jasper Frost (The Royals 📺)

Bravo team (SEAL Team 📺)

Clay Spenser and Sonny Quinn (SEAL Team 📺)

Jason Hayes and Ray Perry (SEAL Team 📺)

Jace Herondale and Alec Lightwood (Shadowhunters 📺)

Sherlock Holmes and John Watson (Sherlock 📺)

Jax Teller and Opie Winston (Sons of Anarchy 📺)

Kirk and Bones (Star Trek 📺+🎥)

Spock and Kirk (Star Trek 📺+🎥)

Han Solo and Luke Skywalker (Star Wars 🎥)

Poe Dameron and Finn (Star Wars 🎥)

Damien Scott and Michael Stonebridge (Strike Back 📺)

Mike Ross and Harvey Specter (Suits 📺)

Scott McCall and Stiles Stilinski (Teen Wolf 📺)

Stephen Jameson and John Young (The Tomorrow People 📺)

Alaric Saltzman and Damon Salvatore (The Vampire Diaries 📺)

Rick Grimes and Daryl Dixon (The Walking Dead 📺)

Neal Caffrey and Mozzie (White Collar 📺)

Charles Xavier and Erik Lensherr (X-Men 🎥)

#whump #kinda #references #bromances #father and sons

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graphicpolicy · 1 year

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Preview: Captain America Unforgiven #1

Captain America Unforgiven #1 preview. The FORGIVEN have lost their way - defeat after defeat has made them bitter and bloodthirsty... and they're starting to like it! #comics #comicbooks #captainamerica

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#captain america #captain america: unforgiven #comic book #Comics #kyle hotz #marvel #sid kotian #tim seeley

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inkdrinkerworld · 2 months

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What are your favorite comics of dick?

I haven’t read any in adulthood (shameful really) but I remember my dad having Tim Seeley and Kyle Higgins written Dick Grayson/Nightwing comics so those were mainly what I grew up on- plus young justice and justice league dvds that went on loop… I am thinking of spending a shit ton on comics this year though just to get back into it

#my nonnies🤍

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ghostsxagain · 1 year

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//alright so new test muses have been added, most are a result of that wonderful fc meme. like this post if you'd like a starter from one or more of them - please specify or it will be random!//

alfie perkins-mcfarlane (tyler lawrence gray). early twenties. pansexual (preference for males). trying to become a professional dancer but works as a mechanic with his dad in the meantime.

august hutchinson (kyle gallner). thirties. bisexual (preference for women). paranormal investigator that often brings entities home with him by accident.

clementine jackson (jasmin savoy brown). late twenties. pansexual (preference for women). sports agent. older sister to my existing muse aaron.

elias ward (penn badgley). mid thirties. bisexual. narrates audiobooks. often babysits his cousins young daughters.

fern carmichael (drew barrymore). late thirties to early fourties. pansexual. mother of two, divorced amicably. yoga instructor.

juno holland (jesse james keitel). late twenties. pansexual. co-owns a pottery shop and teaches classes occasionally.

levi tan (evan mock). twenties. unlabelled sexuality, nonbinary. public relations specialist.

nisha khatri (janina gavankar). age unknown. fluid sexuality. vampire. spends her time wrangling and training newly turned vampires in the family.

olive mcqueen (madelyn cline). twenties. pansexual. wildlife photographer. daughter of existing muse ranger.

oscar rivers (charlie heaton). twenties. bisexual. co-owns an oddity shop with his best friend harlan (played by @glimpse0fus)

rian danvers (miles teller). mid thirties. heterosexual (but questioning). works at a brewery and loves creating new drinks.

tripp mcfarlane (skeet ulrich). bisexual (preference for women). mid fourties to early fifties. mechanic, adopted father of alfie.

seeley, everett (rudy pankow). twenties. pansexual. prefers going by his last name. professional surfboarder that volunteers regularly at a local reptile rescue.

stormy greer (rory culkin). late twenties to early thirties. bisexual. botanist that really loves his job and spends a lot of time gardening.

viggo andersson (joel kinnaman). late thirties to early fourties. questioning his sexuality. former gang member, current bodyguard.

zeppelin leery (sam claflin). thirties. unlabelled sexuality. music producer. son of anakin & lilith (played by @glimpse0fus)

also angie dimaggio (lisa ann walter) but she is exclusively for @goxinsane at present

#yes this is a long ass list #no I do not regret a thing #starter call #welcome new muses to the roster <3333 #lets see how many I keep on permanently LOL

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