ICQ Chat

«Uh-oh!». If that sound gives you goosebumps, this is your room. In 1996 ICQ was the first instant messenger to hook the world: you got a number — the UIN — instead of a name, a little green flower showed whether you were online, and that beep meant someone was writing to you. Before Messenger, before WhatsApp, ICQ was where many people first chatted with a stranger on the other side of the screen. Chat ICQ brings together those who lived it.

Here people remember writing down someone's UIN like treasure, contact lists full of folks you couldn't recall ever adding, the «busy» and «away» statuses nobody respected, and the thrill of adding a random person from another country out of pure curiosity. They talk about how it changed the way we relate to one another, and why — for all our modern messengers — there's something about ICQ that has never quite happened again.

The community is made up of both veterans who had a five-digit number — the oldest of all — and people who arrived later but share the same digital nostalgia. You don't need to have had an account to join: you just need the urge to talk about the days when the internet still surprised us and meeting people was an adventure.

All you need to join is a nickname. No registration, no downloads, no email: it runs on classic IRC straight from your phone or computer browser. Type your nick, hit enter and let that «Uh-oh!» ring out again.