This article has been imported from chorus.fm for discussion. All of the forum rules still apply. Lauren Goode, writing for Wired: Sometimes you had to step away. So you threw up an Away Message: I’m not here. I’m in class/at the game/my dad needs to use the comp. I’ve left you with an emo quote that demonstrates how deep I am. Or, here’s a song lyric that signals I am so over you. Never mind that my Away Message is aimed at you.I miss Away Messages. This nostalgia is layered in abstraction; I probably miss the newness of the internet of the 1990s, and I also miss just being … away. But this is about Away Messages themselves—the bits of code that constructed Maginot Lines around our availability. An Away Message was a text box full of possibilities, a mini-MySpace profile or a Facebook status update years before either existed. It was also a boundary: An Away Message not only popped up as a response after someone IM’d you, it was wholly visible to that person before they IM’d you. more Not all embedded content is displayed here. You can view the original to see embedded videos, tweets, etc.
SHIT YES!!!!! Yes, yes, yes, yes, YAAAAAS! Oh my god how amazing was the AIM "away message"?!!! (Away message): Taking a shower. Back in a bit... "It's supposed to be hard! If it wasn't hard, everyone would do it. The 'hard' is what makes it great!" ~Tom Hanks, A League of Their Own
Yes, the internet needs to know even more where I am and what I am doing at ALL TIMES. Sign me up, please.