LOS ANGELES—Leave it to Chaturbate to set aside two hours for its 10-year anniversary awards show Thursday night only to start and finish the entire shebang in under 50 minutes, complete with ads and entertainment. It went off like a Swiss watch, with winners ready and waiting to give brief acceptance speeches, the longest being maybe 20 seconds. It was very impressive from a production and discipline perspective, and not too shabby from an audience perspective either, with far more than 10,000 people watching online at one point.
Chaturbate COO Shirley Lara opened the show, held 10 years to the day after Chaturbate.com was registered, to remark on the decennial journey. “I helped start Chaturbate 10 years ago and on behalf of the entire Chaturbate family, we want to thank you for ten amazing years of Chaturbating,” she said. “We built a live cam platform, and you built a community.
“We wanted to celebrate 10 years of Chaturbate with our CB community, and what better way to do that than with awards,” she added, noting that they had received more than one million votes for nominees in the 24 awards categories celebrating “the best broadcasters, titties, toes, and much more.”
She then turned the show over to the evening’s two hosts, CB broadcasters Mary Moody (chaturbate.com/marymoody) and Mya Malone (chaturbate.com/blissense/), who held forth from a digital stage in front of a virtual, cheering audience. They too kept the train moving along on time with professional aplomb, just like good mods should.
Not a show for bathroom breaks, even a quick pee could cause you to miss out on two or three winners; that is how swiftly this Snowpiercer of a show sped along. But with the speed came a full appreciation of just what it takes to run an intricate operation like Chaturbate, and to succeed as a broadcaster or member of the CB family. “If you’re able to keep up,” the platform seemed to be telling its users, “we will be there to assist you.” As if to prove the point that it will miss no opportunity to encourage tipping, Chaturbate even offered a special sale of discounted tokens during the event.
The show was broken up into segments to keep the flow going. In the first, six main category winners were announced, including BBW Beauty of the Decade (MissNerdyDirty), Cosplay of the Decade (GoldenGoddessXXX), OG Chaturbator of the Decade (CherryCrush), Newcomer Starlet (KaileeShy), Social Media Starlet (HannahJames710), and Milf of the Decade (Milf_Lacey), the last of whom sweetly thanked her “hubby.”
An entertainment break featured newcomer winner Kailee Shy (on vocals and acoustic guitar) performing an original song with a Chaturbate theme, titled “So Much Fun.” Shot with a band in a theater somewhere in Hawaii, the prerecorded video is a paean to the platform, interwoven with scenes of her Chaturbate friends romping in their rooms.
In the next segment, awards were announced for Bubble Butt of the Decade (HeatherBby9), Python of the Decade (CaseyKissesxoxo), and Toes of the Decade (AshlyeRoberts1), to name a few. Acceptance speeches, as mentioned, were uniformly short and sweet, including the one by animated Melody of Projekt Melody, who enthused, “Thank you, Chaturbate, for giving me the opportunity to call your site home. Despite my controversial beginnings, you gave me a chance when not many other people wanted to. I also want to thank my community, the science team, for having their voices heard. I've never met a more passionate, insane, generous and determined group of humans in my entire life.”
Another entertainment break featured Chaturbate's Amberlaray dancing in a bikini with fire fans gyrating in the woods, near water and rocks, followed by an even faster-paced shout-out of award winners minus the readout of nominees. Categories included Bot Developer of the Decade (Jeffreyvels1994 - Roll the Dice), Cam Room Decorator of the Decade (Madnessalise), and Moderator of the Decade (D0rkKnight), to name a few.
The show entered the final turn with awards announced for the major categories, which included Female Broadcaster of the Decade (Caylin), Male Broadcaster of the Decade (CallumandCole), Trans Broadcaster of the Decade (RubyFiera), Lovers of the Decade (JackandJill), and last but not least, Chaturbate Hall of fame inductee, LovelyAnne (Hot_babes_live), whose remarkable tenure at Chaturbate began on day one.
The awards show ended on an exceedingly high note, with an energized performance by Brooke Candy, who tore the wrapping off my Hershey Bar with ass-burning renditions of “Cum” and “My Sex.” I wanted to look away but could not.
Thousands of people continued to hang out in the awards chat room after the show ended, with many eventually kicked out for unknown infractions. Everyone else went back to work.
For a complete list of Chaturbate Awards winners, please visit here.
Photos 1 & 2 - Mary Moody and Mya Malone; photo 3 - Projekt Melody; photo 4 - Caylin