I still have an AOL account.
Although I’ve been actively trying to phase it out of my life, it’s hard. Sure I could just delete it altogether or just forward everything to my gmail, but it just doesn’t feel right. Member since ’96. It’s probably the longest running affiliation I’ve had with anything. How can I just turn my back on that? Plus who knows what random logins I have associated to my AOL email that I may one day need to reset the password on. What if I want to start posting on Ebaumsworld again or reactivate my myspace? Maybe AOL will be cool again in 20 years and AIM will make a come back. Sure the average user age is 65 but I can’t just throw away my childhood. At the age of 10 it took months to convince my dad to remove the parental controls that prohibited me from going into chat rooms. If I delete my account, how will my grandparents update me with forwarded chain emails highlighting why Obama isn’t an American?
I will say, the urge to take a leap of faith and delete it all together is growing these days. Primarily fed by the insane amounts of spam I receive. At least three times a day I am offered sex from a stranger or unsolicited pictures of naked mail order Crimean brides. I’m often told that there is a huge market for obsolete electronics in Asia and I can sell my completely shattered iPhone 3 for $500. I’ve inherited well over a billion dollars at this point from distant family members in Uganda and can increase the size of my penis by six inches before Labor Day.
All this spam does lead to some entertaining emails. For a few years I would get three emails a week from “ADRIANA”. It was the EXACT same email each time. One of my favorite excerpts…
In case u dont know who this is its ME Adriana.. we used to chat a bit on facebook and then
I think u deleted me 🙁 haha.. anyways guess what… I got 2 things to
tell u.. both good news.. 1) im single now.. yup me and my bf broke up
about 3 months ago… and 2) guess where im moving? RIGHT EFFING NEAR
U.. lol… ur actually the only person im gonna know there.. well 3
cousins too but i cant chill with them lol..
Who’s writing these? They didn’t even ask me for any personal info. What was the point? I picture the classic computer hacker you see in movies. Some overweight 30 year old living in his parents basement in Omaha who has a weird fear of his three cousins.
In the end, I just can’t get rid of it. It would be like deleting a part of me. In fifty years from now when kids will be getting emails straight to their brains I will still rep my AOL and be talking about the good old days. The days when you were judged by what musical lyric you used in your away message not by the size of your 3D printed dick.