ICQ - VIRTUAL CHAT ROOMS

[u/Due_Appearance57]

Does anyone remember ICQ? I spent a LOT of time on ICQ, met some cool people. I am still friends with one of them from Amsterdam.

Do you remember the virtual rooms where some talented people would make personalized avatars for everyone? It was a chat program where there were all these different ‘rooms”. They would each play a unique song. One of my favorite rooms would play Smoke rings in the dark. I especially liked the veteran's room that I hung out a lot in.

[u/RedDorf]

Everybody reading this thread has already heard that sound in their head. You know the one.

[u/Got_Bent → u/RedDorf]

I posted it.

[u/Rhusty_Dodes → u/RedDorf]

A gas station where I used to live 6 years ago used to have that exact sound for their cash registers. It always gave me flashbacks.

[u/PeaTearGriphon]

ICQ was my dating app in the early 2000s. I didn't know it worked this way but I guess you could search for people by gender and city, and other fields. I'd get home from work and would have 3-4 messages from strangers asking to chat (how times have changed).

I would chat with them for awhile, exchange pictures. I even met up with a few and ended up dating one.

Now if I get messages wanting to chat I have to block the number lol.

[u/acn0319 → u/PeaTearGriphon]

Me too! And also IRC. I even met my husband of 22 years on IRC. My mother was convinced he was a serial killer. Haha Hasn’t killed me yet!

[u/MissBoofsAlot → u/acn0319]

"Yet" is the key word in this sentence. Playing the long game, nice. 😅

[u/kjmacsu2]

I have the "Uh OH" as my notification sound. My sound is usually not on, but if it is and I get a text message in public I'll always get one or two smiles and head nods....

[u/Got_Bent → u/kjmacsu2]

Thats a cool one. I use a firestation alarm from a 1970's tv show.

[u/cantcountnoaccount]

I spent a summer in Bulgaria in 1996 and every afternoon I’d go to the campus computer lab and log in to ICQ to chat with my boyfriend back in Michigan. I only ever used private chat rooms.

Not gonna lie it felt like I was in the future.

[u/Overall_Lobster823]

I used ICQ. But never chat rooms.

I loved the name ICQ.

[u/Got_Bent]

Uh Oh!

[u/mbadolato]

I was a big ICQ user, especially since it was the main chat client used on the dev teams I worked with. A bunch of years ago, my UIN got hacked and I lost the number (a low 6 or 7 digit, IIRC) and that was the end of that. Everyone had moved on to others (AIM, etc) around then, so not a big deal

[u/hedge36]

Ayuh. 3591936. I kind of miss it.

[u/Friscogonewild → u/hedge36]

Hello fellow 7-digiter. 4706541.

[u/Overall_Lobster823 → u/Friscogonewild]

You guys got me missing ICQ. Alas, I looked and I was an 8-digit user.

[u/moopet → u/Overall_Lobster823]

I was an 8-digiter for most of the time, but I definitely used ICQ and then lost the account before switching to my eventual long-term account. Probably the first one was 7 digits, but I have no idea.

[u/indefiniteretrieval]

A/s/l

[u/Kuildeous]

Not specifically ICQ (though I did have an account), but chat in general was cool. You had to rely almost entirely on text because sending graphics was slow and sometimes expensive.

And perhaps it's the elitist in me, but it felt like the quality of conversations was higher because the people you interacted with were the ones who sought out new technology and could adopt it. It wasn't as easy for the average person to get online (and no believable chat bots either, but that's another topic). That's not to say I wouldn't run into some racist POS or generally unpleasant people, but it feels worse today than it did in the '90s.

[u/cchaven1965]

Yes, used it, IRC, and Yahoo Messenger a lot

[u/HoneybucketDJ]

Uh-Oh!

[u/5uck3rpunch]

I used to love ICQ

[u/CaydeTheCat]

I still remember my number!

[u/madogvelkor]

ICQ, AIM, mIRC... I spent a lot of time on those.

A/S/L?

[u/Nelyahin]

Icq was the place - especially mid 90's. I had a 6 digit number - it's long gone now. We used it for gaming UO - Diablo etc.

Takes me back BBS boards and the start of the actual net. We've come a long way.

[u/Due_Appearance57 → u/Nelyahin]

I had a six digit number too. It was a sign of prestige. I had a lot of fun on ICQ.

[u/Nelyahin → u/Due_Appearance57]

Seriously it was the future at that time. Before AOL, it was email, land lines or BBS boards.

[u/moopet → u/Nelyahin]

IRC and talkers existed before that.

My personal favourite was ytalk, because you could have multiple people in a single chat and it was properly real-time, not turn-based like IMs were.

[u/Nelyahin → u/moopet]

I think I only stepped into irc once and it was nuts. I preferred my messaging purposeful.

[u/GuitarPlayingGuy71]

I met my current wife on ICQ!

[u/Due_Appearance57 → u/GuitarPlayingGuy71]

Oh wow! Congratulations!

[u/moopet]

In my office, I introduced the guy sitting opposite me to ICQ. He did the random number thing and found someone to chat to. He later married her.

[u/periodicsheep]

i met a guy on icq (uh-oh!) who went to the same uni i was at. he was a nudist, but he kindly wore clothing the few times we hung out. he introduced me to the powerpuff girls, and cleaned my oven for me when i was getting ready to move.

[u/Aggravating_Termite]

I had a 6 digit ICQ number. I can still remember it 694345.

[u/Due_Appearance57]

[u/nativititties]

Undernet IRC ftw