Things that you didn't realize still existed
but for those of us and again, we're talking
about my mortality again, right? You're all gonna
remember this Are you doing some are you farting
right now? You've got mail. The iconic dial -up
sounded, you've got mail. That's right, folks,
into the stuff that you did not realize still
existed. AOL is ending its dial -up internet
service. That's right at the year of our bug,
2025. AOL was still running dial -up internet
service right now. And they had over 160 ,000
customers in America. that were using dial -up
internet service. For anybody that grew up in
early internet days, that dial -up noise and
the, you've got mail, it's iconic, okay? It was
cultural zeitgeist thing, right? But AOL has
announced that they're finally, after 31 years,
right? 1994, when their first dial -up had full
internet connection, They are finally turning
off their dial -up internet service on September
30th. And I know we're kind of joking about this,
but in all seriousness, there are many rural
places in America where dial -up is still the
only way you can get on the internet, right?
Because they don't have cable internet, and they
don't have DSL, they don't have fiber or any
of those lines run. Also, what are all the grandmas
going to do? Back to joking. Jay. Two questions
for you. First off, were you surprised to hear
that AOL still had dial up internet? Because
I know I was. And also, what are your thoughts
on them finally killing it? One. Yeah, I was
very surprised. And then second, I was surprised
at the amount of people that are still on dial
up. Like, I don't understand. You know, I always
hear like crazy stories about like Spokane, maybe,
you know, out there like east of the Cascades,
like, you know, people have to use dial up. I
don't know. But now this is this is crazy. I
thought this thing died a long time ago. So did
I. So did I. There's a part of me that's kind
of happy that it's existed all this time again
for the the you've got mail and that that very
iconic AOL instant messenger noise, right? Okay,
because that AOL, especially when I was a teenager.
Oh, boy. Now we got to go help people. These
these noises that AOL instant messenger had.
Right. Oh, wait. Let's do it again You're jumping
for your thing looking to see who got on oh somebody
Oh, yeah that door opens down Those those those
im noises, okay Man that was just a thing Why
would people again most people are you still
using dial -up to answer chat question from YouTube?
Because that's all they have like legit. That's
all they have out there in some of these really
rural areas like That's what they've got. They
can still use dial -up internet So I can't it
just blows my mind I think everybody had AOL.
Did you have AOL when you were growing up at
all, Jay? I actually did not. I didn't have a
so my first computer. I was it was like. 2008.
Oh, OK. Yeah, I. We were poor. And I. I was like
very much like kind of an athlete growing up.
So I started playing soccer second grade. I wasn't
allowed to drink soda. I couldn't eat fast food.
I couldn't eat junk food that much. It's kind
of like a novelty. So I was like kind of behind
the curve behind the curve. Now, when I was 14,
I got a job and I think when I was 15, I started
buying like my own like console games and everything.
So I bought like Internet. I paid for Internet
like around. When I say like 16 for like Xbox
Live, literally, that's all it was for. So so
yeah, I never had like any of those. Yeah. Back
in the olden days, we didn't have a well instead.
Well, we had BBS's and everything was dial up.
Oh, God. Okay, geez. Again, for an entire generation
of 90s kids, this was absolutely iconic. Again,
I'm amused that AOL still exists, and AOL...
They're finally getting rid of it. That's amazing.
Uh, we wish you luck in the future aol and everybody
who's losing their internet for the end of dial
-up. I'm sorry Uh, oh, yeah now people bring
up other ones. Yeah, so aol was there then there
was prodigy was the other big internet service
and compuserve right and The other thing that
was iconic about aol and and anybody who remembers
this is aol used to send out disks right Um They
would send you discs in the mail, right? And
you can still buy them on eBay. Oh Here we go,
this is the one I want because this is the one
I remember They would send this to you in the
mail Right and like just pop in this disc and
you're online Right and they'd send it there'd
be like a little flyer in there because back
then you paid for it by the hour You're bought
your service by the hour and so you pay a rate
and you'd be like 50 hours a month and Then any
hour past that you had to pay an additional charge
and so they they'd hit you with these discs,
right? That they would just mail out like junk
mail, right? Floppy disks and eventually we figured
out how to use them for other stuff And they
would send you these discs in the mail and you'd
be like cool 53 hours click You know, and it
was that was how they grabbed you was was these
discs they did eventually upgrade to the CDs
right I I would get a lot of those for some weird
reason like all the time I would get the CD roms.
Oh, here we go Here we go 500 hours free on America
online 5 .0 right Here's your free disc with
your five hours of free you've got pictures instant
messenger microsoft internet explorer 5 .0 built
in there you go um so so stop this one's gonna
go a little longer there is a part of me that
misses that version of the internet That was
the absolute fucking Wild West and it was new
and so different right and I Don't know if it's
just nostalgia in my head But I want to say that
that internet was less toxic right because I
think everybody was just so fucking excited to
be there Right. It was like fucking digital Disneyland
right And I wonder if that's just me or if that's
Like something that other people feel as well
like The internet back then just wasn't quite
as crap like because now it's like in many ways
we covered here on this show a toxic fucking
wasteland Right. Um, I mean, what do you think
do you think it's just progressive? We've we've
taken it for granted now I Think they actually
covered this on the Twitter documentary I'm pretty
sure it was Twitter where they kind of mentioned
they noticed like when memes started becoming
a thing and like people really like realizing
that you could hide behind the internet and you
can make very insane inappropriate jokes that
you would never say out loud in your day -to
-day life make a meme out of it throw it on the
internet and then like thousands of people would
laugh and like it and whatever. And it became
like a very toxic like it just kept going and
going because I if I recall correctly like Twitter
had a very like we're not going to take anything
down stance. So they just let everything happen.
But yeah, so I would say I mean, I was not a
part of this Internet that you speak of back
in the day. But it does make sense. And based
on that like documentary, I would say, yeah,
probably, probably a lot less toxic. I don't
know. I just you guys also had to wait like an
hour for like. Titties to load, evidently, so
well, you had ASCII art porn, and for those that
want to do it, you can go ahead and Google that
on your own. I'm not going to put it up on my
stream. OK, but ASCII art. Porn was a thing,
right? And if you know what ASCII is, you will
understand, right? And that would load real fast.
I guess, I'm trying to, there was just times
that we just didn't use it for that or you were
just, you were so used to it that you just didn't
care. You know what I mean? Like it just didn't
matter. Right, and I think some people in the
chat are actually googling it right now going
oh Yeah, I don't know I don't know I find it
very Interesting I I will say So when I was in
high school I had a myspace and I would always
like have to go to my friend's house to like
update my myspace. Oh, yeah, and I will say that
I do really miss like the MySpace days like it
seemed so much better than having Facebook on
your phone and like what Facebook has evolved
into currently. Like I remember when everyone
was switching to Facebook and I was like Facebook
sucks. Like I want to just like continue using
MySpace. So yeah. I do miss like the MySpace
days. My only complaint about MySpace, my biggest
complaint about MySpace was when I go to somebody's
page and I wouldn't be expecting it. Like you'd
load someone's page in and there would always
be that like three or four second delay. And
then all of a sudden you'd get blasted with some
song that they had on their playlist right on
their MySpace page. You're like, Oh my God, what
are you listening? Pause. No, stop it. And half
the time I was like, what in God's name was that?
Okay. Oh God. And some of them, some of y 'all
went a little nuts with your HTML on your MySpace
page and I couldn't read your page anymore. Like
I was just like, I don't, the color scheme you've
picked has made this completely unreadable. No
idea what's happening here. Yeah. I don't know.
I miss it. I do appreciate the fact that you
could customize to that level. I think that's
something that's missing from Facebook and Twitter
and all those was that that personalization that
you could do with MySpace. Because Facebook went
all like hyper clean and like very white. So.
Yeah. It'll it'll be it'll be interesting to
see what what the next one is. I keep we now
have TikTok. Right. We've moved to tiktok now
has become one of the dominant ones. I'm curious
what the next really big one's gonna be after
tiktok. That's That's the one um Yeah Yeah, i'm
curious what's gonna come next um And we've talked
about this before