The Scoop: The chat rooms from your youth have officially received an upgrade. Chat Avenue’s myriad of chat room themes means there’s a space for virtually everyone, regardless of age or background. We spoke to Leigh, an administrator from Chat Avenue, about how the company has emphasized safety and inclusivity while bringing chat rooms into the 21st century.
Reader, we must ask you to do the unthinkable: Close your eyes and imagine you’re 15 again.
The angst! The awkwardness! The acne!
The only cure for these teenaged maladies was in your family’s desktop computer. AOL Chat, Omegle, and Yahoo Chat were just a few of the chat rooms you could pour your feelings into, hopefully without your parents looking over your shoulder.
The chat rooms of yesteryear were the digital equivalent of sending risky notes in class. But looking back with grown-up eyes, I can see just how, well, risky those chat rooms really were. Was anyone monitoring them? Did I really connect with Zac Efron that one time? (Spoiler alert: No, I did not.) Were the romances I conjured up in my mind real or as unstable as my dial-up internet connection?
Modern chat rooms are no longer the Wild West of the internet — or, at least, Chat Avenue isn’t. With a variety of themed chat rooms, unique features, and safety precautions, Chat Avenue is a modern-day chat room with modern-day standards.
The Administrator of Chat Avenue’s popular Singles Chat, Leigh, told us all about how chat rooms have evolved and how Chat Avenue provides a diverse space for anyone, anywhere.
The Evolution of Chat Rooms
Leigh listed the main upsides to chat rooms, and they’ll probably sound familiar.
“You get a great chance to meet new people, form new friendships, form new relationships … there’s so many possibilities,” she told us.
Yes, these are all qualities of apps like Instagram and Tinder, too. But Leigh highlighted a defining feature of chat rooms that most social media sites simply can’t replicate: anonymity.
Social media is all about exposure, but chat rooms usually emphasize discretion. “The cool thing about (chat rooms) was you sometimes had no idea who you were writing to,” Leigh said. “There was a slight sense of anonymity.”
A huge benefit to chat rooms is how you can connect with people from all over the world.
“You get to meet a ton of new people from so many different walks of life,” Leigh said.
If you’re unsure of your sexuality, you can express yourself however you see fit in an LGBTQ+ chat room. If you struggle with shyness, you can practice making connections in a chat room, whether romantically or platonically.
“We have a Lesbian chat and a Gay chat. We have more gender-focused chats, like boys and girls chats. We have Teen chat, College chat, Adult chat…” Leigh’s list really does go on: There’s a Sports chat, a Video game chat, a Live chat, and even a Video chat. “For people looking for something more than Adult chat, we also have a Sex chat,” Leigh added.
In the 18-plus only Sex Chat, you can join themed chat rooms, from the room that covers gay sex to furry fandoms. “Public roleplaying and discussions of a sexual nature are permitted here,” the rules stated.
There are fun features in most of the rooms that make Chat Avenue’s chat experience stand out from the rest, Leigh told us. “The Ruby feature allows people to make actual phone calls through our chat while still protecting their privacy,” she told us. “(Users don’t have to) disclose any telephone numbers, or any of that type of information if they don’t want to.”
In the Adult chat, people who are 18-plus can use Chat Avenue’s webcams to stream themselves to other users. In other chats, you can create a profile, an avatar, and a friends list. And in many of the chats, you can use Chat Avenue’s exclusive music player as the soundtrack to your conversations.
For more personalized chats, you can take your convos out of the public rooms and onto the forums. You can also chat one-on-one with another user, if you’re so inclined.
How Can Users Stay Safe?
The appeal is simple: “You can essentially be whoever you want and nobody knows,” Leigh said. The moral implications of this are, obviously, spotty at best.
It’s one thing for two consenting adults to engage in sexy (or even platonic) conversations in a chat room; it’s another for one person to be lying about their age entirely. Leigh explained how Chat Avenue has tried to avoid this downside of anonymity.
“The minimum age for the site as a whole is 13 years old,” Leigh told us. Thirteen-year-olds are advised against joining chats that feature adult content, such as the Adult chat and, obviously, the Sex chat. (You have to be 18 or older to join either chat.) The Singles chat is only for people 17 or older. To make sure this standard is reached, each chat room is monitored by volunteer moderators. These moderators keep an eye on the chats and address inappropriate behavior.
“Each available room on the site has its own set of room rules,” Leigh explained. “Those are essentially what needs to be abided by while you’re in the room.”
I checked out the Singles Chat to see what these rules were, and they were surprisingly unrestrictive. Most rules exist to keep the user safe. “This is a chat room, not a place for vulgar and/or tasteless chatter, so chat must be clean,” one of the rules stated. “Please be polite and respectful to others.”
Another rule: “Do not give out any personal information to anyone, no matter how much you think you can trust them.” You’d think this is a lesson we’ve all learned by now, but you’d be surprised how easy it is to be lulled into a false sense of security from the supposed privacy of a chat room.
“I have a staff of moderators that dedicate so much time to making sure the room stays safe, super fun, and a great place to just come and visit,” Leigh assured us. “The rooms are covered as often as they possibly can be.”
Very not-fun topics, like solicitation and underage exploitation, are part of the Sex chat’s room rules. Basically, if you break the law, you’ll get banned and reported to the authorities. After all, the sex chat is meant to be a sex-positive place. The point is to release your inhibitions and give your sexy side an anonymous platform to explore and grow with like-minded people.
My Experience With Chat Avenue
When I checked out the public Singles Chat, the conversations were wide-ranging, to put it mildly. Insults, gifs, and meaningless words and phrases flew through the chat so quickly it was difficult for my late-20s brain to catch up. To Chat Avenue’s credit, inappropriate content and bad language were easy to report and swiftly addressed, usually by muting the offending user or kicking them out of the chat entirely.
Once I got the hang of the speed and style of the chat, I could easily see why people stick around. It’s incredibly dynamic; you never know what someone’s going to say or do. And in the chats that are specifically dedicated to romance and sex, you can express your spicy side as much or as little as you want, so long as you don’t break any of the site’s rules.
It was interesting — but not surprising — to see how people interacted with a thick layer of anonymity between them. Some people took it as an opportunity to spout hate, while others simply said “hi” or “hey,” seemingly trying to start real conversations. Other people didn’t hesitate to provide their age, sex (or gender identity), and language/location, just like in the old days.
The anonymous nature of a chat room will always lure creeps and weirdos, even with Chat Avenue’s safety precautions in place. The moderators were usually quick to remedy a creepy situation. You can click the “ignore” button so you don’t have to read someone’s messages if they make you uncomfortable (it’s like blocking them).
When I dropped into some Chat Avenue chat rooms, there were a minimum of 100 people in the chats I looked at. General chat boasted 500 at one point. Above all, it was clear to me that Chat Avenue has tried to establish a positive atmosphere. You can choose different fonts and font colors to add personality to your messages, and you can also send gifs and pics.
When the creeps are handled and the genuinely curious folks have the floor, it’s easy to see why chat rooms continue to intrigue people, even in the age of the smartphone.
After all, they’re all about connection, something humans just can’t live without. And when making connections is totally free — and sans acne and angst this time around — it’s even better.
