You Have Just Sent a Nudge!
Before WhatsApp, iMessage, and Facebook Messenger, there was MSN Messenger. And anyone who grew up during the golden age of MSN knows how nostalgic it feels to even see old screenshots of it. Sure, keeping in touch with our friends might be easier now, but that doesn't mean we wouldn't want to go back in time just to relive sending animated Winks (Laughing Lady, anyone?). If you're ready to take a trip down memory lane, here are 20 things you'll only know about if you grew up with MSN Messenger.
1. Coming Up with the Perfect Email Moniker
As middle school students and teenagers, of course we had to have the perfect (read: embarrassing) email name. Having it just reflect your name was boring. Instead, the more you spammed it with "xoxo" and "luver," the cooler you were. (Acceptable names included: countrymusikluverxoxo_ and butterflygoddezz77x.)
2. Rushing Home After School to Log On
Because after a long day of school, what do you do when you get home? Log onto MSN, obviously! This is where the real talk happens, where you can gossip with your friends about the stuff you couldn't in class. Plus, how else are you going to keep tabs on your crush if you don't hop onto MSN?
3. Wishing You Had a Webcam
Before webcams became a basic feature on every laptop and computer, it was a separate component you had to connect, like a mouse. As kids, we were always begging our parents to get one for us so that we could have video calls with our friends and actually have a relevant profile picture for once.
4. Putting Your Status as "Busy" to Seem Like a Hot Commodity
Sure, you were free with nothing to do and your eyes glued to your MSN screen—but you didn't want people to know that. You needed to feel like you were popular, a hot commodity. And how would you do that? By setting your status to "away," "busy," or "be right back," and then deliberately taking ages to reply back.
5. Putting Song Lyrics On Your Display Name
Oftentimes, MSN display names were illegible, written in symbols and glyphs and too many spaces. They were also usually angsty song lyrics people grabbed from their latest obsession, which almost always was a secret message to their crush.
6. Sending Nudges
It's been two minutes and your friend hasn't replied to you yet? Nudge. Still not yet? Nudge, nudge. Admit it—you probably spammed your friends (and were spammed in return) with nudges until they finally got back to you. After all, how dare they take ages to respond when they didn't even send you a "brb"?
7. Spamming Winks
From "Silly Face" and "Laughing Lady" to "Knock," spamming your friends with Winks was essential. If you weren't sending a nudge every two seconds, your pals would be constantly greeted with the large fist knocking on their screens. And instead of typing "LOL," you were responding with a hysterical woman.
8. Asking People for Their Email
Remember when we were asking each other for our emails instead of phone numbers to keep in touch? If you made a new buddy at school, you were handing them a scrap of paper and pencil so they can write down their totally-not-cringy-at-all email address. Plus, the feeling of adding a new contact on MSN felt glorious. One more person to talk to!
9. Having to Hop Off When Someone Needed the Phone
Only those who grew up with dial-up internet would know what this means. It wasn't as easy to just "go online" back then, not when your internet connection was tied to the phone line. If one of your family members had to make a call, you had to type "brb" to everyone you were messaging and hop off.
10. Playing Minesweeper
Whether or not you actually knew how to play this, Minesweeper was the game you played with your friends to pass the time. After all, it was either that or doing your homework or your share of chores—both of which you'd rather never do.
11. Using Text Abbreviations
From "brb" to "ttyl," we were using text abbreviations for just about everything we typed in our MSN chats. Conversations would typically start with "hey how r u," or "r u gd," and every subsequent reply would be followed up with "ye m2" or the dreaded "k g2g."
User:TheBrickGraphic on Wikimedia
12. Making Yourself "Appear Offline"
More superior than setting your status as "busy" or "away" was making yourself "appear offline." That way, you could still talk to all your friends but not be visible to people you were avoiding. Plus, the trick worked best when you were waiting for your crush: once they came online, you would change your status too, which sent them a notification.
13. Having a Dozen Convos At Once
Who else remembers talking to a dozen friends at once? Sure, there were some days when you'd rather keep it down-low and only chat with your best friend, but other days it felt like you were running a business, opening and minimizing different windows. And if you forgot to reply? Nudge.
14. Asking Your Crush for Their Email
Asking your crush for their email was probably the most nerve-wracking thing to do back then. Sure, you could play it off as just asking classmates for their emails to add on MSN, but truth be told, you didn't add just anyone on MSN. And when they did give you their address? Best day ever.
15. Customizing Chat Backgrounds
Even though the original MSN Messenger background looks nostalgic now, back then we wanted to show off our personal flair. Instead of having that plain blue backdrop, we swapped it for different pictures, scenes, and colors.
16. Choosing Random Display Photos
Because we couldn't put up a photo of ourselves (no webcam, remember?), we were forced to use the default pictures MSN gave us. The options ranged from a soccer ball to beach chairs and a rubber duck, so sometimes you had conversations with three different rubber duckies at once.
17. Spamming Emoticons
Though emojis have evolved, nothing will ever beat the old MSN emoticons. You could set up your own keyboard shortcuts to spam these, and let's face it, your chats were probably littered with these tiny yellow faces. They were (almost) just as fun as spamming Winks.
18. Using the "I Am Listening To" Feature
Remember Windows Media Player? If you wanted, you could display what you were listening to on MSN. This often meant blasting party tunes or angsty love songs, both genres which were probably regularly reflected on your display name.
19. The Pain of Waiting for Someone to Finish Typing
You likely still understand this pain even today, in the modern era with smartphones. But even then, the dread was worse when you were messaging your friends or your crush on MSN, and you were hit with the "__ is typing" that felt like it stretched on forever.
20. Feeling Sad When You Needed to Log Out
When you had to log out at the end of the day to eat dinner or do your homework, it was the end of the world. How were you going to wait an entire day before getting to talk to your friends again? Even though you'd see everyone at school the following morning, it just wasn't the same.
