When did "PMs" become "DMs"? - Internet linguistics and their consequences

[Spruce Supremacist]

I know I'm extremely late to bring up this question, but it's been bugging me for just as long.
I grew up with "PM" being the de facto way to refer to messages exchanged between two individuals, but at some point, at the end of the last decade it seems "DM" has become the norm instead. Why so? What caused it? Is it because we're done pretending that "Private Messages" are private? Is it just people changing things up for the sake of change?

Fun tidbit: I remember that when I started seeing DM being used more often than PM I was genuinely confused on why people are inviting eachother to deathmatch game sessions over trivial things. Kinda wish that was actually what people were referring to back then.

 

[Mr.Miyagi]

The same time "avatars" turned into "profile pictures."

 

[Gog & Magog]

Calling them direct messages is a bit more honest than private messages.

 

[reptile baht spaniard rid]

Calling them direct messages is a bit more honest than private messages.

exactly this, iirc some companies got in trouble leaking private messages (or looking at them or something) and so they all changed to "direct messages" to remove even the hint of possibility that they might be privileged or private.

 

[eatler]

The same time "avatars" turned into "profile pictures."

So Facebook?

 

[Turkroach Couple]

When I gave your M(om) the D

 

[Blobby's Murder Knife]

So Facebook?

Facebook and its consequences, etc.

 

[KittyGremlin]

because here, they are shoved Directly into your anus

 

[Gargamel]

When big corpos decided to start calling them by another name, to differentiate themselves from competition.

I think DMs started with Twitter.