The ICQ “uh-oh!” sound is still the iMessage custom sound for my best friend’s contact, because I remember spending sleepless muddy summer nights of 1999 chatting with him on the crazy realtime chat feature.
I have it set as the notification sound for a friend with whom I exchange text messages very frequently. After we graduated from high school in 1999 we communicated with ICQ almost exclusively for the first couple of years until we switched to MSN Messenger, so it constitutes a form of vestigial nostalgia.
I'm surprised to read of people hating it so much.
Same in Australia before MSN messenger (and now facebook messenger) supplanted it. I set my phone notification to the default ICQ sound and if I get a message in a meeting I see the instant wave of nostalgia across everyone's face.
I fell asleep with ICQ running and my speakers turned way up once. 3 AM and someone decided to send me a message. That was like 15 years ago, I still freeze up a little when I hear it.
End of an era. When I was a little kid ICQ was my first messaging program. It was the first time I spoke to someone over the computer. Even though I have not used it in a long time it gives me feelings of nostalgia.
I don't know if it's nostalgia or silliness, but I've at various times reused the ICQ uh-oh audio as irssi hilight/putty audio bell sound, SMS signal and Discord voice channel join sound over the years. Usually I find it entertaining the first two or three times and then it acts as a very large stressor.
I remember the music/sound when ICQ used to load up. The logo was brilliant. Nostalgia. Circa 1999-2001 when I used it heavily. Best part though: finding strangers and becoming online friends with many of them (without worrying about scams etc).
Definitely at the very least ICQ had it - remember freaking out friends by replying to their questions before they even clicked send. This was late 90s...
ICQ and all it's features and add-ons made IM'ing so much fun. I remember the feature where you could type and your keypresses (incl. backspace) were immediately transmitted to the other side. You could also talk to random strangers and not be scared of frontal male nudity. Of course my IRL friends (I live in the NL) only discovered IM with MSN Messenger.
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