ICQ, launched in 1996, was one of the first instant messaging services to reach a mass audience, and its short notification tones became part of everyday computer use in the late 1990s and early 2000s. As users moved to newer apps, those sounds survived in online culture as shorthand for the early internet era. Creators now reuse the incoming alert in throwback videos, reaction edits, and memes about dial-up days and old chat rooms, because a single chime instantly places a scene in that period without any explanation.