The “buddy list”, blocking annoying people who make fun of you, and spelling girls-gurlz and boys-boyz. AIM used to as American as French toast, but not anymore. The days of the silhouette of a yellow man have gone by the wayside and a new, simpler version of instant messaging has been born from the ashes of AOL Instant Messenger. The most noticeable feature of Facebook Chat is the convenience it poses to the average high schooler and college student. The chat occurs in the same browser window as everything else on Facebook, which leads to fewer complications. “Facebook Chat won’t win any awards for appearance and it has its technical flaws that everyone has undoubtedly experienced, but it provides a simple, convenient end product,” junior Cathy Pastiak said. “In a world that stresses speed signing onto AIM takes too much time. Using Facebook Chat is simply duck soup.” Is humanity better off without AIM, or is Facebook Chat just the product of a rush hour paced society? Facebook Chat’s main selling point is convenience and ease of use, but AIM had a plethora of seemingly useless, fun features. Buddy lists, Chat rooms, and of course, the infamous profile. “Everybody always had a somewhat unique profile with a random song lyric or a quote from his Holiness, the Dalai Lama,” freshman Brian Pastiak said. “What really got me was whenever people started a relationship they always put that they hearted So-and-so or that they loved whoever it was they avoided awkwardly in the halls.” Facebook takes all of the fun out the profile and injects it with an A-Rod like amount of a steroid name practicality. People’s relationship statuses are more legitimate now, although some people end up being married to a random underclassman. Facebook Chat is quite obviously secondary to the main aspect of Facebook (social networking) and this becomes apparent whenever Facebook Chat randomly shuts down, but overall automatically having everyone on your friends list is a bonus instead of having to get people’s screen names. Although the hassle of getting someone’s screen name is a gladly forgotten ordeal, vague memories still exist of the glory that was an awesome screen name. “I remember when people used to have the stupidest screen names,” B. Pastiak said. “Names like MonKeyRAncHer12 and Fowusu6 were common place in the world of AIM.” Facebook takes screen names out of the picture and the people on your friend’s list go by their names. This may seem like a drawback because of the lack of customizability and flair, but just remember how difficult it was to keep track of which friend was which when they both were SOCcerGURL. Complications like that used to happen everyday, which admittedly lend to some pretty funny and awkward conversations (especially when gossip was involved). But when a friend messages you on Facebook, you see their name, not some personality they wish to adapt on the Internets. This provides for the facsimile of adulthood, which has become very necessary in a harsh, serious world.