Stop giggling:AOL users don’t need bells, whistles
Lighting upon the comments following an online story about Vice President Mike Pence’s use of his personal email account to discuss gubernatorial issues while serving as chief executive of of Indiana, I knew what I would find.
Mind you, I’m not talking at all about the comments concerning the existence of a double standard, in light of the private-email-server scandal that dogged former presidential candidate Hillary Clinton while she was secretary of state.
No. I knew I would find That Comment. The first comment wasn’t it. The second comment wasn’t it either. Finally — bam! It went something like this: “Wait, he still uses AOL? So does he still have a MySpace account, too?” Sigh. And farther down, another ding, worded somewhat thusly: “I’m still wrapping my mind around him having an AOL account.”
The comments following the story on another website were even harsher:
“Pence might be smarter than we think. What hacker would possibly believe that someone would still be using AOL?”
“I don’t know which is worse:
that he was using a private email account to conduct business or the fact that he was still using AOL.”
Yes, people who still use AOL for their email are basically regarded as lower in status than people who still drive Yugos.
I hate to break it to you guys, but I still use AOL email. As does my husband, Dre.
So far, nobody’s snickered in my face when I’ve rattled off my AOL email account. Well, except for my assistant boss. When I told him I wanted to write this column, he not only snickered,
he asked if I still had floppy disks piled up on my desk at home. No, Silly, I use those as drink coasters.
Over the years, I’ve suggested to Dre that perhaps we should switch to a couple of our other, more - modern - but unused email addresses. Dre resisted the change, saying that everyone knows him by his AOL email and it would be too much of a pain in the rear to get them to use a new email address. At some point, I came to the same conclusion about my own personal email account. It just seemed easier to stick with AOL.
My sentiment about AOL email is the same as the sentiment of many older codgers when it comes to a car: If it successfully conveys you
from Point A to Point B, they say, then it’s still a good car. I would add that there must be some reason AOL is still around: There would not be a supply without a demand. A money.cnn.com piece crafted in May 2015 shared how 2.1 million people still used AOL dial-up to even get on the internet. (We at least have broadband. But we still use AOL desktop software on our computer.)
Besides, technical stuff — especially when it comes to computers — is updated so much, that it’s obsolete six months later. At some point, it just becomes easier to stick with the old and be derided than to be like a cat on a hot tin roof, going from one gizmo — or email
address source — to another, becoming more empty of pocket along the way. I figure at some point, we’ll also be laughed at for sticking with Version 5 of our smartphones. But we got ’ em for free, and they still work. So sure, call us dinosaurs. Actually “dinosaur” is one of the nicer names for the @ aol.com crowd. A May 2015 discussion-starter thread at Slashdot is titled “Does Using an AOL Email Address Suggest You’re a Tech Dinosaur?” Other, names aren’t so pretty — “Nothing on the internet says ‘I’m a blithering idiot, please abuse me’ as quickly and concisely as @aol.com,” opined a commenter.
Whatever, commenter. One of these days, AOL will
shake off its laughingstock status and, like certain car models, wines and cheeses, be seen as a fine classic. Then you’ll be sorry. Or not. “Am I holding out for some throwback craze, in which people are going to inundate AOL’s servers trying to get their hands on addresses that sport that quaint three-letter domain? … Highly unlikely,” wrote a doubtful Derreck Johnson in a December 2014 Slate.com article in which he defended his AOL email use.
At any rate, I think us AOL emailers could stand to have some support. Not AOL technical support, but a national support group for AOL email users, with local chapters around the country. Even better: an annual conference, complete with vendors selling such goodies as … floppy disks.