My favorite phone of all time is the BlackBerry Bold 9000. Unlike the iPhone 3G, which touted a revolutionary design when it was announced just a month later in 2008, the BlackBerry Bold wasn’t super flashy. But it had one thing the iPhone 3G didn’t: BlackBerry Messenger. It became a defining characteristic on BlackBerry devices and forever changed how business and casual conversations were held by phone users.
Today, after years of dwindling usage and financial woes from BlackBerry developer RIM, BlackBerry Messenger is going away for good. BlackBerry Messenger (better known as BBM) was one of the first instant messaging (IM) platforms that arrived on mobile devices in 2005. People could choose to use a BBM account tied to their unique BlackBerry Pin rather than send a standard text message. BBM managed to take traditional desktop messaging and translate it to the tiny computers in our pockets. It was astounding. It wasn’t perfect, though. BBM looked like an early version of Facebook’s WhatsApp. The text bubbles were cluttered, the user interface felt clunky when navigating between messages, and if the wheel on your BlackBerry got stuck, good luck scrolling through messages. Despite BBM’s weaknesses, it became the app that defined my early high school experience for two main reasons: group chats and a striking similarity to desktop IM platforms like AIM. I got my Bold 9000 in 2008. I was in the 10th grade and, like everyone else, my life revolved around my phone. My friends and I texted every single day and night. We all had BlackBerrys. Some people got new devices from their parents as birthday gifts, others used old recycled phones.
Through BBM, those individual text messages soon morphed into elaborate, endless group chats. We became a perfect batch of new BlackBerry users. RIM already made a name for itself among businesses and governments, but then it started reaching a crucial new audience: young consumers. By 2013, BBM had 60 million monthly active users. My friends and I were some of the earliest ones. It sounds silly to say today, when WhatsApp has more than a billion users and group chats are part of our daily lives, but back then, it was sensational. I didn’t have to wait until I was home to log on to MSN Messenger to continue talking to my friends. It was also through BBM’s group chat function that I entered my first high school relationship. We became close through constant group chats with our pals, and eventually, we split off into direct messaging. Yes, in 2008, I did the BBM equivalent of sliding into the DMs. Every time I saw my Bold’s flashing green light turn red, signifying a new message, I experienced that little burst of warmth in the pit of my stomach. It was ridiculous and exhilarating. There was no difference for me at 15 between my physical relationship with this person and our life on BBM. If anything, the latter felt even more intimate and safe. I wasn’t
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