I recently had a memory come back to being on aol sometime in 2001 and chatting with someone who claimed to be from Japan. This was in an anime chat room I used to visit.

Was the service available outside the USA?

  • SorosFootSoldier [he/him, they/them]OPEnglish
    8•2 months ago

    I believe they had international numbers but they weren’t like a major presence outside of the US.

    Ah mystery solved then. I remember them being really into The White Stripes, so probably a western weeb.

          • TipponEnglish
            2•2 months ago

            I’m sure it was earlier than that. I’m in the UK, and I’m pretty sure I was using it at home in the mid 90s, and almost definitely when I was living away in 1998. I remember using Trillian to speak on AIM, MSN, Yahoo, and a few others around the same time :)

              • TipponEnglish
                1•2 months ago

                I must be thinking of one of the other chat programs then, Pidgin maybe? I could have sworn it was Trillian though.

                I remember using some form of AIM after I moved in to my first place in 1998, because I was keeping in touch with friends on it without having the full AOL software installed.