Joshua M.

I am just going to say that this website was pretty much the dictator to my teen years until its closure, even though it isn't active right now and there are major security issues that need to be a addressed, I have to say that this was one of the most wholesome full websites I have ever been on and I mean that. You will never reach this level of community and belonging on any other website, not on Discord, not on Facebook, not on any social platform.

I joined in december 2015, I was just leaving primary schools and I had no friends, and I was a lonely kid. Sure I was only 11 but I wanted friends again and so I searched and search for websites that would help me make friends. So obviously I stumbled across E-chat and honestly I was a bit of a goof initially, randomly hitting up girls because I was like 11 very immature (not an excuse) but I would just ask for nudes and say stupid $#*!. I know I swore and this is meant to be a review but I am just opening up about my history to the website. I know what I was doing was wrong but my parents eventually caught it on my history and took my electronics from me.

It had been a few months but around march 2016 I had my tablet and laptop back, I was big into roblox like most kids my age, just turned 12 and I remembered e-chat so I went back on my account and apologised to the ladies I was being rude and harrassing, I explained that I was just being a dumb little brat, again it isn't an excuse for my behaviour but after being on the website a few more weeks I wanted to become a mod, I went around the Gatelands, I entered the hellholl that is the animeme canteen and I even hanged around in a few 18+ rooms just to troll on a few poor individuals until I came across the Teahouse, the teahouse was a calm room full of interesting people such as chris76, thecowpig and a lil dinosaur called barney the dinosaur. It was weird because I just started high school and all these people were twice my age but they weren't predatory in anyway, they treated me like a real adult and like someone who demanded respect, I felt respected and wanted, sharing my work with them, sharing videos, sharing socials, having to put spacings between links to not block our messages and such. It was fun.

After a year of coming home from school and logging on to talk to new users and the usual people I was offered a moderator spot by one of the owners, I forgot his name but he said he didn't want to run the server anymore and gave me full responsibility of the server, I was the owner of the Teahouse for 2 years, I didn't get paid or anything, just given a google doc with the rules of the server, spells (basically commands) and such powers as renaming the server. The blue shield was a fun spell :) had to kick a lot of people too.

After 2 years I gave the server up to Barney as I had recently had a heated discussion with a mod from a neighbouring server about running the Teahouse saying how I was unfit to run a server at 14 while the other owners of other servers on the site were in their 20s, I made myself a resident to make them happy and gave the ownership to barney the dinosaur who was there longer than me.

If you are unaware the e-chat runs on this lore known as the gatelands, there is an entire wix page on it somewhere but in basic, the website explains that the 3 servers animeme canteen, the gatelands and the teahouse are connected by their worlds and its basically a giant world and stuff and I'm not going to explain it in full here but me owning one of the lands was a big deal to me but a big problem for those who had been in these servers a lot longer than me. And so for some 13 year old scrub to be handed the server was a bit unfair. But it was fun for the 2 years I owned it. Like I said, I became a teahousian resident for the rest of my time in E-chat eventually having my teahouse residency removed by stacy, a moderator who felt I should be removed for the lack of activate-ness in the server. Then in 2019 before the e-chat closure I stopped using it.

I know that bunch of jargon is really confusing but e-chat was a home for me until I went to college, I love this website and the experiences and lessons it taught me, it taught me how to have compassion for other people, how to run a server, how to use commands in a server, it taught me friendship and how to make users feel welcome, being the owner of the teahouse server on e-chat was the most fun I've had in my life and now it is gone it feels like a myth, it feels like it never existed now, even though in my memory I remember everything, I made hundreds of friends and people who I have lost contact with because of the closure but if the website comes back. I highly recommend this website to any kid who is lonely and needs friends. Don't go as low as whoring yourself out to the internet but don't be closed off to people. Just block sexual people and have fun. There is no need to get worked up over some of the idiots on the internet.

Despite how many people feel towards chatrooms, I have to say that y99.in is not the only website offering something similar in the sense of a chat site that anyone can join. Obviously there comes the danger of people lying but that is where it becomes your own job to distinguish whether someone is real or not, it isn't up to the website to keep you safe so I would take those complaining about that sort of things with a pinch of salt. Just ask yourself, how do you stay safe on websites like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube and even maybe Discord? The website doesn't tell you someone is dangerous, you have to find out yourself and so it should be the same thing when it comes to sites like chatrooms.

As for my criticism, I don't think it needs any with the website being very well designed for anyone to navigate. I often find discord overwhelming with all of the diagonal views and so having everything laid out in front of you makes things the all more greater for accessing what you need. I love how they integrate other features though such as call, a memes sections and the ability to make your own rooms. Its reminds me a little bit of an old website I used to use called E-Chat, it wasn't very safe, less safe than this but the ability to meet new people every time you went online is something I will never forget, it also helped that only 200 people could be in a server at once.

On y99.in you do not have such restrictions but it has the same charm and I love that, while I can completely understand that people don't enjoy being able to be spoken to at any moment, thats what chatrooms are for, I find chatroom websites fun because often I am alone and don't have anyone to speak with, so when I am suddenly able to chat with people on a full chatroom with similar interests or hobbies it makes me feel good and not lonely anymore. Just a small chat with a bunch of strangers can go a long way because it isn't like your going to meet any of these people ever again unless you are a recurring person.

Even though I said to expect the unsafeness of the website, it is still an issue, and will remain an issue until the end of time but with that being said I give this site a 3 star rating, its easy and friendly for new users who may not have used a chatroom before. With a variety of features such as VC, an anonymous public draw board, a bunch of chatrooms, a meme wall where you can post memes and have them reviewed like you would on reddit, its just pure fun and I don't see how someone could get upset over that. Its just like any other place on the internet in regards to safety but its purely in your own hands if you for some reason give a stranger your address or something. Its YOUR FAULT. NOT THE WEBSITE.

I'm only 17 and my writing is rubbish but I hope my review was helpful! I love this website: 3