Who else remembers the good ‘ole days of AOL? The times when you would turn on your computer and hearing a friendly voice say “You’ve got mail”? It turns out that friendly voice belonged to a man named Elwood Edwards… and he really is as jovial as he sounds! How do we know this? Elwood, now age 67, is currently an Uber driver in Ohio, and a video of an excited passenger realizing who he is, is going viral.
Videos by InspireMore
“This is my Uber driver, and he’s just told me something really special!” says Brandee Barker, the woman behind the camera in the video below, “He’s the voice behind…?” Elwood smiles and finishes her sentence for her: “Welcome, you’ve got mail.”
OMG OMG my @Uber driver in Ohio was the You've Got Mail voice Elwood Edwards!!! I made him say it in this video #GOTVforHRC pic.twitter.com/Jgcl7v040D
— Brandee Barker (@brandee) November 5, 2016
Of course, Brandee quickly posted about the experience on social media, and the hilarious, nostalgia-inducing encounter has people losing their minds.
It's him, it's really him! 😳 pic.twitter.com/qbIAnxIgEX
— Spencer Chen (@spencerchen) November 5, 2016
OMG he's so nostalgic I mean that sentence defined a generation! That was so exciting to hear you've got mail lol📬
— Tina Ridener (@RidenerTina) November 7, 2016
what he needs is a person to imitate the dialup noises and they could work parties
— J🍩ey Bag 🍩f D🍩nuts 🍩 (@joeybagovdonuts) November 7, 2016
It turns out, Elwood– the pre-cursor to Siri and Cortana– became this iconic AOL greeting almost by accident. As he explains in a video for AOL, his wife, Karen, worked for Quantum Computers and volunteered Elwood to be the voice of AOL messaging. He recorded the now well-known phrases on a cassette tape in his living room.
And, yes! The guy in the video below really is the Elwood Edwards! Check out the video above.
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