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I'm 46 yr. old SWM and I was rather addicted to America Online chat rooms in the late 90's.
Back in those days, it was really the only "social media" that existed because there was no such thing as smartphones or Facebook or Twitter or even MySpace. I would log on to chat up total strangers, but soon learned you could search for women of a certain age range within X miles of your ZIP code. Naturally, I used this feature a lot as a single guy looking for random hookups and possibly a new girlfriend. I must say, from about 1996 to 2000 it landed me a LOT of meetups for great sex and even some steady girlfriends! I even proposed to one of these women but it didnt work out.
For whatever reason, these online chat rooms have pretty much disappeared. Does anyone know why? I'm obviously not the only person who found them excellent ways of striking up conversations with members of the opposite sex without the hassles of dressing up and approaching a random stranger in a smoke-filled noisy bar somewhere. It was a hell of a lot easier getting rejected online than in person.
I know AOL chat rooms had a sleazy reputation as a hangout for "losers" and "pedos" looking for random sex encounters but I must say I had some awesome conversations on them getting to know people and we would spend many hours talking about our lives and our dreams and desires and fears.
So the basic question is --- how can something that was so addictive and useful to millions of people just disappear with nothing to replace it? I realize there are dating apps out there like Tinder and Match.com but these don't provide real-time chats where you can get to know someone in a dynamic way. What happened?
Very simplistic answers that don't really explain the disappearance of chat rooms. You had to experience what an AOL chat room was like, and then you'd quickly realize FB and Twitter dont come close.
Very simplistic answers that don't really explain the disappearance of chat rooms. You had to experience what an AOL chat room was like, and then you'd quickly realize FB and Twitter dont come close.
Rick is saying that the fact more and more social media is about now that people are spoilt for choice so naturally with more options then people will stray from one specific
Rick is saying that the fact more and more social media is about now that people are spoilt for choice so naturally with more options then people will stray from one specific
Very simplistic answers that don't really explain the disappearance of chat rooms. You had to experience what an AOL chat room was like, and then you'd quickly realize FB and Twitter dont come close.
He's right, though.
Once the mass population had transitioned to social networks from chat rooms, owners of chat rooms began to shut them down. AOL did so in 2010, followed by Yahoo! in 2012, and MSN in 2014.
Because who has the patience to sit there and consistently talk to people anymore? Way easier to respond when you feel like it. Same reason texting replaced phone calls.
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