Chat Avenue

Let's go to ChatAvenue aka Chat Ave today! Do you remember when chat rooms ruled the online world? Personally, I have spent quite a few hours chatting with girls that I met from chat rooms on AOL Instant Messenger when I was a teenager. Well, at least I thought they were girls. Catfishing was not even a thing yet, nobody knew it was something to even watch out for really, so who the fuck knows. Chances are, though, at least a couple of the “girls” that I spoke with were, in fact, fat dudes named Jim or Bob from Wisconsin. Actually, in retrospect, it’s no surprise that chat rooms eventually were all but made obsolete.

Chat rooms, especially video chat rooms, ended up being the target of a lot of worried moms. And, to be fair, in some cases, for good reason. The chat room in the early aughts was a pedophile’s playground. Although, I’m not sure that analogy works all too well in this instance, seeing as a playground would probably be a pedophile’s playground, but you get the picture.

Lots of predators liked to lurk around chat rooms, trying to lure in girls (and boys probably … I’m glad young me was smart enough not to try and meet up with any of these “girls” I chatted with on AIM. It’s truly a shame, too, because they could have been such good resources for picking up chicks. Or, at the very least, having a little bit of one-off cybersex or cam fun without the high price tag of xxx cam sites. Leave it to the pedos to ruin a good thing for everyone else.

Believe it or not, though, there are still a few chat room sites out there, scattered around the web. Some of them even cater to those of you who like to do the webcam thing. The only problem is, the majority of them look like they were designed in the late ’90s. This is probably because most of them were designed in the late ’90s. And for whatever reason, the people who run the site never found it prudent to revamp or keep with the times. Many of them are like digital ghost towns, where you enter and find maybe one or two other horny dudes that you just know haven’t left their bedrooms in weeks. Hell, they’re probably the same pedos that were talking to me when I was a teenager.

Some of these chat room sites, however, are still extremely active. Shockingly so. Even though they still look like something you might find in a time capsule, there are apparently still people who use them. Whether or not they are the genders and ages that they say they are, though, is still a mystery. But luckily, webcams are much more common than they were back in the day, so if you ever have doubts, nowadays you can just ask “her” to share a pic or go on a live cam chat with you.

Most adult chat room sites are free of charge. Now, to be clear, we are not talking about adult camming sites. I don’t want you to get the wrong idea. No, adult camming sites are far from free. And the only one that won’t drain your bank account is Chat Roulette (but, as we all know, that is full of nothing but a barrage of dicks). Cam sites will drain your bank account. However, if you find a good one, they will also drain your balls. But that is a separate matter altogether.

Maybe you just never got over the allure of quickly and conveniently chatting with anonymous total strangers. Or maybe you, like many of the chat room sites that are still out there, just can’t seem to get with the times and try something new. Either way, if you are a chat room frequenter, one that is still highly active and probably worth checking out is Chat-Avenue, although it isn't my #1.

Shitty Site Design from Another Time

Chat Avenue, just like all of its contemporaries is, as I mentioned, very poorly designed. It literally looks the site has not changed one bit since its launch in 1999. Which, considering the fact that it is completely free of charge and contains no ads to speak of, I guess that checks out. Still, though, you’d think they would update it at least a little bit!

This dated look and feel might be nostalgic for some, though, and perhaps that is why they do it and I’m just not hip enough to get it. But, hey, nostalgia can go suck a dick. I’m all about moving forward. Either way, when you arrive on Chat Avenue’s home page, I think it will become immediately clear what I’m talking about. You’ll find a white background, a cheesy blue and yellow banner at the top of the page, a list of icons to click on, each representing a different type of chat room.

You’ll probably be most concerned with Adults Only and Cam Chat … although, maybe Singles Chat or Dating Chat will catch your eye. Or if you’re the kind of guy who likes to discuss his hobbies with strangers online (and still haven’t discovered Reddit), then there’s also Music Chat, Video Games Chat, College Chat, and Sports Chat. There are a few others, but I’m not going to promote them because I fear that you perverts might actually have the gall and/or shamelessness to visit them, and that would be no fun for anyone.

Below the chatroom icons, you’ll find a lengthy message and mission statement (?) from Chat Avenue. Here, they reassure users (and parents alike) of how seriously they value their users’ safety. They write, “This website values the safety of members seriously. We try our best to staff live and active moderators as much as possible to create a safe environment. We have and will always cooperate with local and federal authorities for matters that place our users and the public in any danger.”

Clicking into the Adults Only chatroom brings you to a new page. It’s a little tricky to navigate because what appears to be the link to enter the chatroom at first is actually a link to My Free Cams. So, I guess it isn’t fair to say that they don’t have any ads. But, still, no popups or marginal promotions (at least not that I could find anyway … respect!). Below this slightly deceitful link, though, you’ll find an Adobe Flash-powered box. Activate Flash and type in a username. From there, you are free to chat all you want!

The chatbox itself is also straight from another time. It is very basic. Just a list of users to the left and the actual chatroom feed to the right. You can send a private message to any user, as you can in most chat rooms, and the actual chatroom feed was really fucking active. Unfortunately, I could not find a settings tool that would let me turn off notification sounds. So, every time someone sent a message in the chatroom, you’ll get that little swoosh sound, which can be annoying.

Beware of Spam Bots

As far as the selection of ladies to talk to. It appears as if there are a fair number of females that frequent this room. However, I don’t know how many of them could be bots. I did not chat with all of them. I did get a private message from someone who turned out to be a bot trying to get me to check out some bullshit “get laid tonight” site. So, there’s a good chance that there are probably more where that came from.

Chat rooms aren’t really my thing, personally. If I’m looking to cum, I will either go get some pussy or jack off to porn the old-fashioned way. Every once in a while, I will fuck with a cam site. But I try not to get too into those because they are fucking expensive (and addictive!). You know, they are basically pornier strip clubs on your computer. So, they definitely come at a price. But I guess everyone cums at a price at the end of the day, don’t they?

All in all, as I said, chat rooms aren’t for me. But if you’re a chat room lurker, Chat Avenue may just be the right site for you. It is very active and there is at least the illusion of a fair number of ladies to chat with. The design is fucked and definitely needs to be updated. But other than that, everything works well, it does what it’s meant to do, you can video chat with people, and there are plenty of people to talk to. I suppose you don’t really need too much more when it comes to a chat room site, do you?