AOL Instant Messenger launched in 1997 and became how a generation of American teenagers talked after school — running-man logo, door-creak sounds, away messages left up for hours. Its emoticons were a short list of typed faces mapped to keyboard shortcuts, years before an emoji standard existed. AOL shut AIM down in December 2017.
This hat
Before emojis ruled the world, there were the AIM emoticons. This hat is a tribute to the original way to express uncertainty in the digital age. A simpler time, a simpler icon.
