The Downfall of MSN Messenger

As some of you may know I have a certain fondness for the days of my youth. They were simple times of marble seasons, hide and seek tip and other such cliches. I'm sure some of you might even remember the good old days before Facebook and other social networking sites when kids would sign in to MSN Messenger and talk about cute boys and shit instead of doing homework. I personally liked this era. Signing in to get my daily fix, to see if anyone has humorously changed their display name, to see if anyone new has added you and to hopefully chat to that highschool crush of yours. For many people I know MSN was the reason they created their email account, with many still embarrasing us to this very day. For anybody I know who grew up in that era MSN Messenger is now dead.

The death of MSN has not been swift and kind. No MSN has been dying of a horrible degenerative illness for quite some time now. This time 18 months or so ago MSN happily fullfilled my online interaction needs but now I only sign in for the convenience of checking my email. But do you want to know the moment when I knew, without a doubt in the world, that MSN was terminal? It was when I started getting new, unfamiliar people adding me. I shrugged and accepted at first, what's a fresh face here or there? I might even know them? But then I started getting more. One of them sparked up a conversation with me. It went something like this.
Oh of course, it's not a real woman interested in me. No no it's just a delightful advertising campaign designed to lure in perverts. At last I was comfortable and things were back to normal. MSN was still not being used by actual friends, woman were still not interested in me and I was still a sad, lonely blogger without any prospects of female company. Few! What a relief. So now everyday I sign in to MSN to check my email for Facebook updates (fuck that seems convoluted) and decline a few more offers for companionship by people with particularly effeminite emails (no killin_n_shit@hotmail.com's here) as well as closing the tabloid-ish Ninenews popup boasting a slideshow of celebrity kids or a breaking news article about how Lady Gaga is strange.

It's sad to see a once loved communication medium dying in such an embarrasing, demeaning way. So from me here at Infinite Possiblogities I'd just like to acknowledge the youthful joy and distant friendships MSN allowed us to maintain for so many years, even if we did have to appear offline on the odd occassion to avoid that annoying kid with the big ears who's dp was always something shit like a boggle-eyed penguin. Wait...why was I sad again?