AOL – America Off Line

AOL is shutting down its dial-up internet next month. Wait a minute.  Let me back up.  Yes, AOL was still offering dial-up in 2025. The same service that made your 90s-bedroom sound like R2-D2 having a meltdown, SCREEEECH–BEEP–BWAAA–KSSSHHHH, and just like that, we were “online.”

Back in the day, AOL was the portal to the World Wide Web. You got the CDs in the mail (and somehow ended up with 73 of them in a desk drawer), logged in with that yellow running man, and heard “You’ve got mail!” like it was the voice of God. Sure, at 54 kilobits per second, downloading one song took longer than a Tamagotchi’s lifespan, but it was worth it.  Let’s be honest, it was all we knew, and it was liberating.

Now, it’s joining other 90s legends in the great tech retirement home—Blockbuster, pagers, floppy disks, and that weird blue-and-grey Apple iMac everyone swore looked “futuristic.” Even frosted tips and JNCO jeans have had their day.

As of 2023, only about 160,000 Americans, roughly the same number still hoarding Beanie Babies “as an investment”, were using dial-up, mostly in places where people thought “broadband” meant the elastic holding up your sweatpants.

Come September 30th, AOL will hang up for the last time

So goodbye, AOL. You gave us chat rooms, instant messages, and a sound so iconic it could be our national anthem—if the anthem took 15 minutes to download.

Thanks for the memories, AOL. And thanks for that sound we’ll never forget, because it’s permanently burned into our brains.