ICQ was a big part of the internet for me in my youth, I loved it and had so much fun, and I’ll never forget it. The iconic logo of ICQ was a flower…this flower. Instant messengers were a complete godsend and became our way of talking to each other, ICQ was the starting point for a few years, before MSN Messenger took over and dominated. Some people did not even have a mobile, and it was obviously a time before smartphones and millions of apps. The other element was talking to your friends online, which was the thing to do, and such a massive novelty too…You have to remember this was a time when teenagers just got mobile phones, and text messages cost 10p a go, calls were even more expensive, and that’s if you even had the credit to text! It was a time where there was much more innocence online, and more security, because it was completely normal to use an alias or nickname, you’d never use your real name (or at the most, your first name) and nobody put up pics online, so there was not a judgemental element based on appearance, and nobody knew what you looked like. There was plenty of ASL asking going on, and you could search for people with similar interests to talk about stuff, it was 1 on 1 chat rather than a chatroom, so it was much slower paced than the other way to chat online, which was chatrooms with too many people. It was a time on the internet where you used a nickname, and for ICQ everyone had a UIN (Unique Identification Number) and a time where more often than not, you’d talk to people you didn’t know about similar interests, or just to have a little chat. So for a brief history lesson ICQ (I Seek You) was a computer messenger so you could talk to people all around the world, or your friends. If you have never heard of ICQ then I guess you are just waaaay to young! 😉 Either that, or you never went online before 2003. This week’s Throwback Thursday I look at something which was a big part of my internet life when I first went online…In fact a big part of anyone’s internet life back in the late 90’s and early noughties…I am talking about ICQ!

Icq chat 90s