Chatroulette: A throwback to 90′s style internet randomness
Since December I’ve heard rumblings about this new one-to-one chat service. However, the chatter was so low I dismissed it as perhaps another social-media-wanna-be-the-new-facebook type of thing. Then a few weeks ago I saw a surge of discussion over Twitter and blogs documenting the beauty and the depravity of what is called Chatroulette.
Not familiar with Chatroulette? Ok, here’s the Cliff Notes overview. Basically, it is a peer-to-peer based chat system that pairs you with random people from all over the world. Nothing new, right? Wrong. Each random stranger has a webcam. The moment you connect you are face-to-face with a stranger or sometimes a puppet, or a sign and unfortunately too often – an occasional pervert. The beauty of the system is that you can move on to the next person in a split second by simply “Nexting” them. There’s no login, no identity—you can be anyone, or anything you want. You have complete control over the experience, as does the other user.
Chatroulette is not for everyone. And without doubt it is not a place you want children to be. It is unfiltered, unprotected and certainly not the controlled flavor of social media that we have grown accustomed to. Simply, it is random, it is chaos.
My first experience on Chatroulette was typical. The first face I ran across was some college kid – i assume – looking bored and likely a victim of several next hits. Well, I didn’t want to waste my first CR experience on this dude.
Ok… NEXT!!
Then I stumbled upon a guy playing guitar in Bronx, NY. We chatted for nearly 20 minutes. He had a great playing style and feel. It was very cool! I gave him a link to my music site and we have emailing each other since.
Moving on… BAMB – a pervert. Unfortunately, this is a very common thing. I’m still perplexed as to what motivates this behavior – so, I’ll leave it at that. After which I had a few great conversions with a graphic designer, a web marketer at a university and a darling girl with paraplegia. Overall, it was a positive experience. Minus the freaks.
In summary, Chatroulette is really nothing new. However, it reconnects us to the random aspect of the internet (IRC, AOL chatrooms, forums) that is all but forgotten in our current state of overprotected, sanitized social media channels. It goes against what we have been taught: “Don’t talk to strangers.” But strangers are sometimes interesting. And if not interesting, we are in control of the situation – simply hit NEXT.
Scared to to give it a whirl? Fine, here are a few videos from around the interwebs documenting the experience and a few moments of random brilliance.
• The Daily Show’s take on Chatroulette
• Merton, the improvisational piano chatter (no, it is not Ben Folds)
• Ben Fold’s live in concert – Ode to Merton
Photo by: mscaprikell