Intervention For People Who Still Use AOL

You've Got Spam

Got bless AOL (nee America Online). It's the internet service provider that refuses to die despite being rendered moot by a maturing* online community. While the media is throwing around the buzz phrase "Web 2.0" (which means nothing, by the way), AOL can best be described as "web beta 0.1". I admit I'm am making an educated assumption since I haven't used the service in over five years simply because it makes about as much sense as riding a bicycle inside a moving vehicle.

*In content, not spelling, grammar or attitude.

I wouldn't really care all that much if my mother wasn't so married to AOL, despite having a broadband connection that works perfectly fine without that little faceless running man cocking everything up with his bloated internet suite. When I go to visit the parents, she'll show me something she found online and I have to constantly scroll around to read a single sentence inside the shrunken browser window embedded in the shrunken AOL window. (This is all not helped by the fact that she's still using 800 x 600 screen resolution - which means she does not know of the gradient blue background decorating the negative space of my website. I should change it to a list of all the bad things I've done as a child that my parents never knew about. I'm a big fan of hiding things in plain sight.) I often try to convince her to use one of the many stand-alone browsers with little success. The Commodore 64's still in the closet. Why don't we try to browse Amazon.com with that while we're at it?

Another reason I'm begging people to ditch the AOL is because, without fail, many users will tell me that their computer takes a good hour to boot up, but don't want me to disable AOL from auto-starting (along with its "let-me-hold-your-hand-idiot" internet security programs it insists on bringing to the party). As if it takes so much effort to double click that ever-present triangle that the interminable wait for Windows to start paying attention to your input is justified. Again, they don't even have a dial-up connection. They're using broadband, yet are still paying AOL money because, I suppose, they feel bad for them (or got tired of being "mindscrewed" by over-eager retention agents not too long ago).

"As a Prodigy customer, I can't begin to understand your addiction..."

The fact of the matter is that most services AOL used to offer in its exclusive little playpen can now be had for free. If chat rooms are your thing, child molester, you can still utilize them through their website. And if you simply must use your AOL email address, it's yours for the taking with all the same features you used to creatively misspell words and forward tired jokes as before. Heck, it still even says "You've Got Mail" in case you forgot to put that movie on your Netflix queue.

I find it shocking that I'm still pleading with people to ditch their AOL in a large, metropolitan setting where broadband is smacking us all in the face as we walk down the street. But I suppose I should start planning those interventions. Cue the zippy xylophone music. Ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding...*

For more internet bashing, check out Forwarded Fun Facts, "Outed" By Google News, or Craigslist is Balls For Job Searching.

*Not getting the "ding ding's"? It's a TV show on A&E. I felt I had to explain since I assume that many have never heard of it seeing how they still get unsuspecting people to go on it without them knowing what's going to be behind the door of their "final interview".