I find it interesting that you automatically assume the conversation took place over IM. My immediate mental image when reading it was of (an edw519 faceless blob) sitting in front of a screen and his (equally faceless blob cofounder) leaning in across the doorframe telling him to come get a beer.

But that's just me; I'm old :-)

They were probably talking in real life...since they are talking about getting beers... ?

Unless you were making a joke which totally flew past me...

Many people have successfully abstracted away the difference between face to face conversation and the stunted (no body language etc.) interface over IM and tend to treat them in a similar way.

Especially with people they communicate and interact with in an office environment. The IM 'text line' tends to not limit typical expressive communication as much as you would think (even without smileys).

Anyway... begone "it's fake i can tell by the pixels".

He may not have copied a literal transcript from his IM logs, but you get the fucking point.

Who said it was IM?

edw519 sounds like a screen-name. I had the first impression of someone talking face-to-face but when you look at the way the speakers name's are presented it looks like it could be an IM conversation. Again, I didn't catch it at first, but once you look back I think you'll see how someone could believe it's IM.