AOL Chat Rooms

People signed up in droves. Forums on the Apple II, Macintosh, PC, software development, and gaming were popular. Needless to say, my sex life was quite healthy and vigorous back then Ever since about 2005, the AOL chat rooms pretty much died out, and other services like Yahoo Chat never got popular.

AOL also has a paid service, , that has chat rooms not available to users of the free or older versions of the software. It was about community. Occasionally someone tries to introduce the topic of spirituality. After phone calls and emails with AOL support, I finally learned that I had to get a paid account to use AOL Desktop.

AOL Chat Rooms - Copyright © 2003-2008 Chatbat.

Mike Riccardi would spend hours in chatrooms hosted by America Online as a teenager. That was the 1990s, and Riccardi was into grunge and metal music, video games, and computers. By 1997, AOL had 19,000 chatrooms. That year, AOL Instant Messenger launched, born out of the Buddy List feature in AOL. Along with this product came the away message, buddy icons, a personal profile, and eventually voice chat, file transfer, and chat bots. Of course, celebrities were involved in this new way to connect with the fans. Today, many chatrooms seem to have only one person loitering inside. Now primarily a digital media company, AOL — it owns The Huffington Post, TechCrunch, and Engadget — seems to have forgotten about its chatrooms and the people who use them. Who Uses AOL Chatrooms in 2017? A mix of the elderly and trolls. And, just like in the 1990s, people looking for sex. A user named Bird still uses AOL chatrooms. To this day, Garden Chat appears to be one of the most active chatrooms on AOL. But now the room is completely different. The abandoned entertainment rooms are about outdated TV shows, celebrities, and movies think Desperate Housewives, Brangelina, and Twilight. Frequent, longtime users — it seems to mostly be the elderly — who log on to chat about gardening have increasingly been met with trolls who start arguments about President Donald Trump. And yes, there are people — unsure about Tinder — looking for love. The most popular chatrooms on AOL today have names like Widows and Widowers, Garden Chat, and Sixties Plus. Also popular, a chatroom for Republicans, along with chatrooms called Beliefs Christian and Born Again. User-created sexual fantasy rooms are also popular. On Garden Chat, sometimes people still trade tips for gardening and cooking, messaging back and forth in different fonts, font weights, and colors. On a good day like above, users on Garden Chat, a chatroom that remains popular on AOL, may exchange tips for cooking or gardening. But sometimes, trolls invade. Some just argue and call names. At the pinnacle of AOL, the company had paying subscribers. And chatrooms have been around before AOL was AOL. When it was still called Quantum Computer Services, the company debuted chatrooms. It was about community. Joe Schober, the longest-running employee of AOL who worked from 1992 to 2014, was a moderator for the Apple II forum. Regular chat rooms could hold up to 23 people. Users could also create private and public chatrooms and host scheduled events. Forums on the Apple II, Macintosh, PC, software development, and gaming were popular. But as the PC exploded in popularity during the Clinton years, so did AOL. A 1993 Associated Press story even describes how then-President Bill Clinton was considering holding a town hall on AOL. I just liked engaging people with my words and relationships. AOL was her first introduction to the internet, and on chatrooms, she spoke to a computer programmer for the first time. She even eventually became a host on Teen Chat. In exchange for being in the chatroom for certain hours and moderating, AOL would grant her free hours. There was little trolling. It was more often you had to remind people what the values and norms of the room were. You did not get into chatroom wars or thread wars. It seemed like a more dignified discussion. It was a very comfortable and friendly environment. Two years later, AOL laid off nearly all its AIM developers, cutting jobs of more than 40 employees in. Chatrooms in the Post Apocalyptic Age Chatrooms are a completely different landscape now. When I enter the room called Beliefs Christian — presumably about Jesus — trolls angrily message each other with profanity and hate messages about Trump, liberals, and more. Occasionally someone tries to introduce the topic of spirituality. When I enter the Sixties Plus Love the only active romance room whenever I was online , elderly men immediately start messaging me. One man is Tony, age 60. I introduced myself as a reporter, and after an awkward initial exchange, he says he uses chatrooms to look for a girlfriend. Patricia Lackey, a 58-year-old security officer, also sometimes uses chatrooms for dating. Some I have met in person. Tina, a 45-year-old home goods business owner, initially used the rooms to chat with other moms, but eventually moved into the adult chatrooms, spending anywhere from 15 minutes to 3 hours chatting about fantasies and trading porn videos. Some of the chatrooms she frequents are Forties Plus, Nudist, and LGBTQ. In 2014, Facebook tried to bring back chatrooms by launching a app. But messenger apps like are on the rise, where people can create teams around similar goals or interests. It exists in other forms, like live commenting or tweeting on Facebook and Twitter. After several phone calls with AOL support one representative told me to go on help. After phone calls and emails with AOL support, I finally learned that I had to get a paid account to use AOL Desktop. To use chatrooms today, you must use the AOL Desktop software. As social media has become increasingly identity-oriented example: the and individualistic, anonymous chatrooms have remained singular from the modern internet, even as they teeter on the brink of extinction.

Chat rooms aol what, too, did happen to the chat rooms Parker so fondly remembers. I guess you can still use AIM if you like, but I don't know if it has chatrooms unless you create your own with other users. Some I have met in person. Clear Chat Area Clears the prime area. It may also contain the AV clips of other users in the room or private chat. Who Uses AOL Chatrooms in 2017. When I went to check, years ago, the places I hung out in were gone. Never give out personal, identifying information about yourself. Etiquette for AOL chat rooms includes not using abusive language, not advocating violence and not inciting illegal activity. Read the complete list when you sign up. So, is the chat room dead. I introduced myself as a reporter, and after an awkward initial exchange, he says he uses chatrooms to del for a girlfriend.