rays of sunshine, courtesy of icq
A few years back I started using ICQ again for nostalgic reasons. I didn't really think I'd use it that much, but it grew on me and now I use it as my primary instant messenger.
I do receive garbage from time to time, but something I haven't mentioned is the good communication I get from it. To date, I've made relationships with several people that graduated into friendships that include regular phone conversations, one of which occurred today. More on that in a moment.
ICQ as far as I'm concerned is the internet equivalent of a diamond in the rough. It doesn't have any of the b.s. Facebook has and hearkens back to the time when the internet was a whole lot simpler and friendlier. Those I communicate with on ICQ are genuinely friendly folks.
Due to an ICQ conversation, I was able to talk to a really nice girl today. It lasted several hours and she was awesome to chat with. Things like that never happen on any other messenger I've used, which is why I don't bother with the others anymore.
I honestly believe that what people don't realize about sites like Facebook is that they're nothing but big badly programmed forums. When you boil it all down, that's what a social media site is, and it's really not that good at all considering traditional forums work a million times better.
ICQ on the other hand is not a forum but still has roughly the same social interaction, done so in a way that makes sense.