In high school all of my friends got into the whole AIM thing fairly early on. They would say to me, "When are you going to get AIM?" "AIM is awesome," or, "The other day I was talking to ____ on AIM and he/she said _____! It was sooooo funny!"
My usual response to these online chat connoisseurs was simply, "Get a life you loser! If you want to talk to me, stop tying up your phone line and call me!" This response was both angry and true. I did not believe in the power of online chat. In fact, I found it tedious, annoying, even (*gasp*) pathetic.
Then I graduated high school and swore that I would keep in contact. All my friends wrote their screennames in my yearbook and said "get AIM and K.I.T.," and I punched them all individually in the face for being annoying. Still, my first week in college I was lonely and had to distract myself from the goings-on of the roomie, so I finally installed AIM. At first, I didn't understand the language. I'd occasionally type out, "What in the hell is 'LOL'?" and get simply a "LOL" as a response. That made me mad, and having no one around to punch in the face did not help matters.
But eventually -- and I can't really tell you when -- I became one of the many other freaks that's obsessed with AIM. I now talk to my roommates on AIM from the room next door. I think about my away messages for way too long in the morning and read others' away messages religiously. When I type up my papers for class I find myself having to go back afterwards to add punctuation and change all the "ur's" to "yours."
Most importantly though, I have taken up the creation of the perfect profile as an art. I am on the constant search for profile-worthy quotes. When Ryan Adams says he loves processed cheese because "there are cows out there that need jobs," I have to put that in there for others to enjoy. When LoFidelity says to me, "One day, Eugenia Salvo will strike fear in the minds of unsure musicians," or DJKruze so honestly remarks, "Women: can't live with'em, can't pee standing up," or Ashlea calls me a bitch for stealing the "shit-can key," I can't really help but put those treasures into my profile. Why? Because they're funny, because they make little sense out of context and because they make me seem like I have cool friends that say funny, intelligent things.
I know you are all reading my profile. That's why I do it, damn it. It doesn't matter to me that my brother says, "I'm so tired of your profile. I hate it!" Because when killrtofu puts you in her profile, you feel special, and maybe your profile-worthy comment will help someone having a difficult day. And maybe I really would rather worry about that than some stupid paper. And maybe all of you idiots should stop calling it "AIM," and go back to calling it "A.I.M.," because frankly it pisses me off. I will not hesitate to punch you in the face and then write about it in my profile. I'm so angry. Damn that rap music. Seriously though, AIM rocks.
