New England Patriots farewell to AIM is sad and hilarious
The New England Patriots bid a fond farewell to the once-popular messaging service, AIM, by giving the world a peek into their old screen names.
Did you ever use AOL’s instant messenger service known as AIM? Some of the New England Patriots did, and they chose some interesting screen names.
For those of us who are old enough to remember when AOL was the most popular portal to the internet (despite being charged by the minute), the accompanying messenger service – AOL Instant Messenger (AIM) – was a big part of our digital existence.
We all had AIM Buddy Lists full of our friends and families screen names (you millennials may refer to them now as a Facebook friend list), and the familiar dings and bleeps of incoming messages were almost as exciting as the heart-pumping “You’ve got mail” verbal notification.
New England Patriots
AIM has now gone the way of the Dodo, and the New England Patriots were kind enough to clue us in on their old AIM screen names in what would have made the most perfect Pats buddy list ever.
Per the Patriots official website, defensive back Devin McCourty went with “datruth2468” while fellow secondary-mate Duron Harmon chose the inconspicuous “crballer124.”
Special teams player Matthew Slater could be pinged at “slaytrey18”, and offensive lineman Ted Karras went with an odd choice, “tkguttygut”.
And punter Ryan Allen? Why not add “westsideballer04” to your buddy list just to round things out. Wait…punters don’t ball, do they?
And then, of course, there’s Rob Gronkowski.
Gronk was true to form, even in the early days of the interwebs.
Say hello to “Chickmagnet4lyfe” (wonder if his sign-on sound was the schpritz of a beer can opening).
Patriots lifestyle editor, Angelique Fiske, came up with her own screen name creations for those Pats who didn’t have (or couldn’t recall) their AIM login.
"Tom Brady – gOldenst8gOldenarmDont’a Hightower – HeReCoMeS Da b00mBrandin Cooks – cookiemonstaAaAahDanny Amendola – doladolabillzJulian Edelman – squirrelzb4gurlzJames White – SW33TxF33TJimmy Garoppolo – iTalianStalliOnx10Chris Hogan – chil laxin 711Rob Gronkowski – sPiKeDoCtOrrrrrRex Burkhead – TDxREXDion Lewis – gryffindorseekeralwaysMalcolm Mitchell – m0n3y m1tchDavid Andrews – bear6060**Inspired by his Instagram handle of the same name"
If you’re like me, this bit of news made you want to go back and see if you could remember your AIM password and retrieve that old buddy list.
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The digital world had all but forgotten AIM, but thanks to the Patriots, we’ll all have some special memories of our favorite pop-up window distraction.