Back in the late ’90s and early 2000s, AOL was the king of getting online, and AOL Instant Messenger (AIM) was where the real action happened. Launched in 1997 as a standalone chat app, AIM let you pick a screen name, craft an away message, and talk to friends in real time without tying up the family phone line if you were lucky enough to have DSL. By the early 2000s, AIM was cranking through updates like 2.0 and 3.0, adding buddy icons, direct file sharing, and chat rooms that defined online social life for a whole generation. It was simple, fast, and addictive—everyone from middle schoolers to college kids lived for that iconic “door slam” sound when someone signed off.