MSN Messenger was shut down a little while ago and though I hadn’t used it in a long time, I felt this huge pang in my stomach at the thought of it being gone. From the age of 13 to about 19, it was a huge part of my life (in both a good and bad way). I killed so much time on it but some of the conversations I had on it honestly changed my life.
As a tribute, I thought I’d share some of the ridiculous stuff that went down on MSN. I didn’t do all of these things (though I did do a lot of them and for that I hang my head in shame) but I know that they were all common practice. So sit back, get comfy and get ready to cringe at all the silly things your teenage self used to do.
- Offline messaging in stealth mode so you could talk exclusively to your favourite people
- Going to school and hanging out with your friends and then running home and chatting online to the same friends about what happened in school
- Print screening the convo to show your friend to ‘interpret’
- Copying and pasting a convo in real time to your best friend so they could tell you how to reply
- Getting into a fight with someone online and adding your friends to the convo as ‘back up’
- That one friend that kept sending nudges and winks
- That friend that came online but always had ‘don’t talk to me’ in their screen name
- That one random person who was always online even at 5am
- That annoying person who aaalwayssss typedddd liiikeeee thisss
- xoxo_princess_fairy_92_xoxo@hotmail.com Enough said.
- Asking your friend if someone else was online to check if they had blocked you
- The awkward moment when you were added to a group conversation with someone you had blocked…who then knew you had blocked them…woops
- Hearing the same story from two different perspectives at the same time and just sitting there thinking ‘why don’t they just speak to each other?’
- Being so popular that you could count to 10 and be confident someone would say ‘hi’
- Typing ‘brb loo’ when actually you just need time to come up with a decent reply
- Telling someone ‘brb’ and never returning
- Telling someone that you had to go when in actual fact you had nothing to say. Close window and block for good measure.
- That feeling you got when your crush signed in
- Signing in and out so your crush noticed you
- Seeing your crush online and signing in but making sure to wait 10 minutes before you said anything so they didn’t think you were a psycho
- The fury when said crush disappears during the aforementioned 10 minutes
- Late night conversations with your crush- oi oi!
- Your crush’s status is busy- Argh should I start a convo or not?
- Extending the goodbyes because you didn’t want the conversation to end
- When asking for someone’s addy was the equivalent of 079-ing someone
- Playing 21 truths and ‘would you rather…’
- Boss protecting whenever your parents entered the room (good old shift-space)
- Mother walks into your room … ‘so what was the History homework?’
- Sending 20 full stops to clear the screen
- Knowing something serious is about to be said if you see someone typing for a long time
- –so and so is typing- This continues for 5 minutes during which time you were expecting a major revelation and then they say ‘sorry hit the spacebar’
- Becoming a fearless bastard online and saying everything you never had the nerve to say in person
- Noticing that the same people who pretended not to know you at school were happy to spill their guts online
- Being annoyed because the person you were talking to took longer than 10 seconds to reply
- Texting someone to come on msn
- Having your screen name ιи тнιѕ fσит with lots of crap like ¸٠·΄°˚o¸٠·΄°˚ next to it
- Reserving your personal message for song lyrics
- Judging people on their MSN font and colour, and being super pissed if someone copied yours
- Matching your font colour with your display picture
- Starting your screen name with a symbol so that you were at the top of everyone’s contact list
- All your conversations looked like this: ‘i was like’ ‘and then she was like’ ‘to which i was like’ ‘and then she had the nerve to be like’
- ‘hi’ ‘how r u?’ ‘fine. u?’ ‘good’ End convo.
- ‘I’ll tell you later on msn.’
- ‘what are you doing?’ ‘talking to you.’
- ‘why do I always have to start the convo?’
- – A is typing- –B starts typing- –A stops typing- –B stops typing-
- ‘you first’ ‘no you go first’
- Accidentally typing in the wrong conversation window
- Said something you wish you hadn’t –‘oops wrong convo’ saves the day!
- Lol, brb, g2g, l8rz, kk- the birth of chat speak
- Having entire conversations in emoticons
- Destroying your opponents at minesweeper flags
- Knowing what (8), (*), (Y), (N) meant
- Having an entire emoticon collection of dancing fruit
- Knowing all the shortcuts to your amazing emoticon collection
- The notable increase in typing speed from using MSN
- Using the draw facility to draw pointless pictures or in my case explain integration in an emergency
- When sending one song took 10 minutes
- Synchronising MSN with Windows Media Player so everyone could see what you were listening to and bask in your amazing music taste
Have I missed anything?
Over and Out!
Comments on: "68. MSN Memories- join me and cringe at all the silly things your teenage self used to do…" (13)
I didn’t have the internet as a teenager but I spent many hours at friend’s houses on their msn haha. It’s funny about the people spilling their guts online, I used to sit next to this guy on the bus and we’d say hello but be to nervous to say more but he was talkative online about private stuff!
Ahh. I remember I went to my friend’s once who was fighting with our other friend and she had made her picture a photo of the girl she was mad at with devil horns and a moustache drawn on her in paint with the caption ‘I’m fat’. She changed it a mere 30 seconds before that girl signed in. Gosh.
Oh and sending people dancing pigs that then hog the screen haha.
Awesome reminder, kind of sad
Thinking about MSN always brings back lots of memories! Ahahaha I remember the dancing pigs. There was also a guitar smashing one, a hand knocking on your screen, a frog eating a fly, the love heart and a kiss…
I’m shocked I still remember that!
This made me laugh sooo much! 😀
30, 31 and 46 are things I recognise from Skype… (Yes, I’m making you go back to check your list)
Hehehe! I went back. I checked 😛 I think I need a separate post for the all stuff that goes down on Skype!
Omg this was amazing. I’ve used it around the same time as you, from when I was 11 to basically 17 (when it died on me D:) and there were so many memories! I remember I used to write down all the short forms and their translations to make sure I don’t forget them…man I was so lame. And there was a period of time when everybody tYpEd LiKe ThIs for emphasis… not to mention the emoticon letters. I am pretty sure I had the entire collection for a complete alphabet. And accidental nudges, and this just makes me sad haha And old too.Skype and Facebook chatting is just not the same 😦
I agree- Facebook chat and Skype don’t have the same…charm as MSN. MSN felt like one big (highly dysfunctional) family. There was always drama but that’s what made it entertaining. Ahhh I think we truly are the MSN generation.
So funny because they’re true! I don’t know where I’d be without MSN though, it’s the reason I learnt to touch type without even trying.
Ah ha ha! Exactly! MSN totally increased my typing speed too though I haven’t reached Level: Touch Type.
This was too funny! Although I haven’t actually used MSN, my older sister used to use it all the time. By the time I was ‘of age’ no-one used it anymore. 😦
Pardon, none of my friends. They were all on Facebook or the like.
Ahhh I’m biased but it really was awesome (though plenty annoying too) and even though I’ve grown out of it, I miss it! Facebook is not the same 😛
“Can you go on webcam?” “Nah it’s broken soz” – All the time.
Guahahaa! ALL THE TIME.