Ye AOLDE Yahoo

From AARP.org: 8 Common Job Search Mistakes

A recent AARP article on mistakes older job applicants make included a warning to ditch your Yahoo! or AOL address in favor of a "professional email address with Gmail or Outlook." The comment section of a JoeMyGod post about Verizon's plans to merge the two ISPs is just dripping with contempt for the two dinosaurs of the internet.

So help me out here.

I got a Yahoo! email address back in the Pleistocene Epoch, then an AOL address at the behest of a syndicate editor who wanted to be able to IM us contrubutors. I still have both, although I only keep the Yahoo! one for my Flickr album and because the AAEC listserve is on Yahoo! Groups. I do regularly use the AOL address, which I kept even through a period when the syndicate established its own email url, which never had a spam filter and our accounts kept getting spoofed until it abruptly disappeared without notice. (At least, I think there was no notice. It might have been lost amid all the spam.)

I also have a little-used address through our cable provider because, well, we're paying for it whether we use it or not. Like CMT and EWTN.

I get why I wouldn't want to apply for a job using an email address that includes my year of birth because "paulberge@whatever.net" was already taken, or one with an obvious reference to sex, drugs, or membership in ISIS. But that's common sense stuff to the left of the @ symbol.

It's not as if I have no experience with Outlook or Gmail, but what's the big deal aside from not being quite so ancient? Are they cheaper than free? Has Outlook not yet been discovered by North Korean hackers? Are Gmail fonts classier? Does the recipient listen to your email being read aloud by Morgan Freeman? Do I really need another calendar?

How soon will their addresses betray a decaying e-neighborhood of GenY and millennial fuddy-duddies?