The pixelated nostalgia is coming in hard and fast this morning.
It happened at around 7pm last night.
One of those news stories you’ll always remember where you were when you first heard, like when Michael Jackson died or when Ireland accidentally legalised yokes for 24 hours in 2015.
Either that or you’ll have already thought Aertel shut up shop around 20 years ago, depending on your vintage.
In any case, RTÉ have announced that the service will cease operation next week after almost 40 years in business.
Aertel first went live on an experimental basis in 1986, before launching officially a year later providing everything from up-to-date news and sports scores to holiday info and, when the time came, frequent updates on the Covid-19 pandemic.
Over the last twelve hours on the platform formally known as Twitter, Irish people of a certain age have been pouring one out for the trustworthy “internet before the internet” service, and we’ve rounded up some of our favourite memories shared.
Let’s get into it.
Practicing news reading
This one would bring a tear to anyone’s eye, including jaded Gen Z-ers who haven’t a breeze what Aertel is.
I spent most of my childhood on the news pages 103 onwards practicing how to read the news so I’m actually saddened by this ? https://t.co/ZchPTaJMlW
— Shane Beatty ?️ (@ShaneBeattyNews) October 2, 2023
Ringing home and asking whoever’s there to check Aertel
Many’s a time I’d have to patiently scroll through to the sports pages for my Dad, while he not-so-patiently awaited the horse racing results on the other end of the phone.
Actually ringing home from abroad and asking your da to check page 222.. RIP Aertel. ( you kids eh!! .. look it up 🙂 ) pic.twitter.com/Her1IiqkXn
— Buzz O’Neill-Maxwell (@buzzoneill) October 2, 2023
The original doom scrolling
The generations before us invented scrolling through page after page of information with varying levels of relevance – we simply perfected it.
One of my service users who has dementia loves #Aertel even though I can google it in seconds whatever he wants to know, he will happily spend a half hour up and down the pages and thats okay so I get it’s irrelevant to today but I’m sorry for him. https://t.co/YDUVt3jgbW
— Trisha H (@TrishaNHam) October 2, 2023
Homework helper
In the days before Google, Aertel provided a handy little dig out.
RIP Aertel, thanks for all the news articles I plagiarised from you for my English homework xx https://t.co/iddTsXoPqY
— Róisín (@ALilBitRoisin) October 2, 2023
Book reviews
My kingdom for an oversized Aertel t-shirt.
In the late 90s I submitted a handwritten review of an @RL_Stine ‘Goosebumps’ book for publication on Aertel. It was published (I have no idea if it still exists). I received an Aertel t-shirt that was about 6 sizes too big for me. Friends, I did it for that t-shirt. https://t.co/V8sRkRwRJS
— Patrick Huff (@Mr_PHuff) October 2, 2023
Accidentally skipping over your page
And having to scroll back from the start all over again.
Image via RTÉ
Checking the cinema times
It’d only take you three short hours to scroll through and find your own local cinema. Easy.
Political updates
Yellow you win, red you lose. A bit like pool.
My earliest memory of being a political numbers nerd was the Sunday morning of the 1997 Irish general election going onto aertel to see the overnight final counts of the Louth constituency, those elected in yellow, eliminated in red. I had just turned 10 ?? https://t.co/bWxY2gtfjt
— John Sheridan (@CllrJohnS) October 2, 2023
Flight times and holiday bookings
If you were waiting to pick someone up from the airport, there’s only one place you’d check for updates.
I’m not sure my dad was ever happier than the day flight info came to Aertel. We lived near the airport and were always collecting arriving family. No more waiting in the terminal. Just sit on the couch until Aertel said ‘landed’ and then head to the airport. Magic ✨ https://t.co/1rOxRUAHkP
— James Raftery ?????️??️⚧️ (@james_raftery) October 2, 2023
Headline character counts
A Roman Empire all of their own.
My version of ‘how often do you think about the Roman Empire’ is ‘how often do you think about how every Aertel headline was exactly 33 characters long’.
The answer is ‘more often than I should be admitting in a forum such as this’. pic.twitter.com/R90voLfyMY
— Gavan Reilly (@gavreilly) October 2, 2023
Aertel the Musical
Get on it, Andrew Lloyd Webber.
Aertel the musical sounds like a no brainer. https://t.co/vDODArc68v
— Luke ‘Ming’ Flanagan (@lukeming) October 2, 2023
Aertel announcing its own demise
A Black Mirror-esque way to go out.
Aertel announces its own imminent demise.
(Captured by @superwonderstar) https://t.co/l4iwJ9y1DD pic.twitter.com/IyjQTkvX5O
— Guesser (@ZXGuesser) October 2, 2023
What are your favourite memories of Aertel? Did you have a go-to page number? Let us know!
Header image via RTÉ Archives
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