Reaching out on Chatroulette

At some point in the past few weeks, a friend has likely told you about Chatroulette.com. He and a number of his friends—“never go into Chatroulette alone,” he implored you—read about it somewhere in the blogosphere. The previous night, with a few drinks and time on their hands, they decided to take the plunge.

They went to the site and read the rules (“more like loose guidelines,” your friend tells you). All clear: Yes, they were over 16 years old, and yes, they had no intention of “broadcasting obscene offending, pornographic material.”

They clicked play, their web cam turned on and into the whirlwind they fell.  

Before beginning his story, he first gave you the overview of how Chatroulette works, as you had not yet had the dubious pleasure of playing: You are matched at random with a stranger. Your screen will show your video feed under the label “You” and the stranger’s video feed under “partner.” Your partner, of course, can see you as well. At any time during your connection with your partner, either of you can click “Next.” Once you “next” your partner or your partner “nexts” you, the magic wheel of Chatroulette spins, landing you with a new partner.

Done with his explanation of how to play Chatroulette, your friend launches into his harrowing tale. He lists his first few failed attempts at interaction. “The man slowly petting the stuffed frog, the room full of angsty teens and a sock monkey had no interest in being our new best friends.”

Rejected three times in a row. Such disappointment he felt, such self-doubt. Is it my hair, he thought? Is it my shirt? My shoes? I think I look like a nice enough guy. Why won’t the frog guy be my friend?

Growing disillusioned with what had been billed as the next step in the web-based social revolution, he reluctantly clicked “Next.”

“Girls!” one of his friends yelled. “Don’t next us, don’t next us!”

After the heartbreak of the nexting, Chatroulette then bared its true nature, so to speak: penises, lots and lots of random Internet penises. Next.

Next.

Next.

Give up.

With that, his story ends.

You stare at your friend in puzzlement, thinking to yourself, “Is this site actually popular, or should I run away from my sexually deviant friend?”

In the past month, Chatroulette has blown up. In December, the site was nothing more than a creepy meeting place for a few hundred people. Now it is a creepy meeting place for tens of thousands at a given moment.  

A few months ago, publicity for Chatroulette was limited to the Twitter account of that kid who always had his hands down his pants during Homeroom in middle school. This month, Chatroulette has commanded significant coverage in mainstream media.  Respected outlets like New York Magazine, The Washington Post, The New York Times, MSNBC (comeback plans for “To Catch a Predator: Chatroulette Edition?”) and this fine publication you hold in your hands have explored the Chatroulette phenomenon, further fanning the flames of its unexpected popularity.

So don’t worry about your friend. It’s perfectly natural to be curious about Chatroulette. But the question remains: Why would anyone want to use this site after the curiosity wears off?  

Initially, Chatroulette may strike you as an interesting social experiment or an opportunity for a drinking game, but when Chatroulette gets weird—and it always does—it becomes difficult to understand why people come back to the site (unless they are exhibitionists, in which case it could not be easier).  

Perhaps people are just reaching out of the isolation of the i-Pod/Pad/Book/Tunes/Everything age to make a desperate grasp at human contact. But all they will get is rejection, heartbreak, requests to get naked and many, many penises.

Jordan Rice is a Trinity senior. His column runs every other Tuesday.