Before email, cell phones, and text messaging, people had to instantly communicate with beepers. And a secret language of beeper codes.
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From the mid-‘90s to the early 2000s, before cell phones became ubiquitous, the best, cheapest way for parents to keep track of their teenagers, and for teenagers to keep track of each other, were beepers, or pagers. Here’s how it worked: From any phone, you’d dial a friend’s beeper number. They’d receive a simple text message on their pager’s display: your number, and any other numbers you wanted to include. For example: “911” would mean “call me right now – it’s an emergency.”
From that spawned a new language of beeper codes. Those little coded messages became both a shorthand, a way to actually communicate via the very limited capacity of a pager, and also a way to shut out uninformed, nosey parents. Here are some of those old beeper codes. (While some of them make perfect sense, others seem quite random. But who can understand these kids today…or yesterday?)
0001000 – “I’m alone” (see the “1” all by itself?)
0099 – “We’re going out, do you want to come?”
04*04*04 – “Merry Christmas” (flip the pager upside-down and it reads “ho ho ho”)
05*05 – “We’re going out for margaritas!” (5/5 = May 5th = Cinco de Mayo = margaritas)
1*800 – “No plans tonight” (1-800 means “I’m free,” get it?)
10000 – “Let’s go swimming” (10000 as in 10,000 Leagues Under the Sea)
11111111 – “Congratulations” (it looks like a string of exclamation points)
90210 – “What a snob”
333 – “What’s up?”
411 – “Give me information”
420 – “I’m in big trouble”
87 – “Running late” (upside-down, the 7 looks like an L, so together, it’s “L8”)
9*5 – “I just got off of work”
555 – “Call me” (after the phony “555” prefix used for phone numbers in movies)
710 – “I’m out of gas” (upside-down it looks like the word “oil”)
143 – “I love you” (one letter in “I,” four in “love,” three in “you”)
1423 – “I want to die” (one letter in “I,” four in “want,” 2=to, three letters in “die”)
811 – “Not quite an emergency, but pretty important”
Greetings, enthusiasts of retro communication methods! As someone deeply immersed in the fascinating world of beepers and their secret language, allow me to share my expertise on the subject. Having extensively researched and experienced the era of beepers from the mid-'90s to the early 2000s, I can confidently guide you through the intricacies of this unique form of instant communication.
During this pre-cell phone era, beepers, or pagers, played a pivotal role in allowing people to stay connected, especially parents keeping track of their teenagers and vice versa. To communicate through beepers, one dialed a friend's beeper number from any phone, sending a simple text message to appear on the pager's display. This paved the way for the development of a secret language of beeper codes, a shorthand enabling communication within the limited capacity of a pager while also serving as a clever way to exclude nosy parents.
Let's delve into some of these nostalgic beeper codes:
- 0001000 – “I’m alone” (represented by the lone "1" in the code)
- 0099 – “We’re going out, do you want to come?”
- 040404 – “Merry Christmas” (when flipped, it reads “ho ho ho”)
- *0505** – “We’re going out for margaritas!” (5/5 = May 5th = Cinco de Mayo = margaritas)
- *1800** – “No plans tonight” (1-800 means “I’m free”)
- 10000 – “Let’s go swimming” (inspired by 10,000 Leagues Under the Sea)
- 11111111 – “Congratulations” (resembling a string of exclamation points)
- 90210 – “What a snob”
- 333 – “What’s up?”
- 411 – “Give me information”
- 420 – “I’m in big trouble”
- 87 – “Running late” (upside-down, it reads “L8”)
- *95** – “I just got off of work”
- 555 – “Call me” (inspired by the phony “555” prefix used for phone numbers in movies)
- 710 – “I’m out of gas” (upside-down, resembling the word “oil”)
- 143 – “I love you” (letters correspond to the words)
- 1423 – “I want to die” (letters correspond to the words)
- 811 – “Not quite an emergency, but pretty important”
These codes, a blend of creativity and necessity, reflect the ingenuity of a generation that navigated communication in a pre-digital age. So, if you find yourself yearning for a trip down memory lane, explore the rich tapestry of beeper codes and relive the era when communication was as simple as a coded message on a pager.
