News Hit

Words and photos by Delima Shanti If you’ve got a decent Internet connection and some free surfing time on your hands, then you’ve probably come across Chatroulette. At the very least you know of it. A new online chatting service complete with webcam and audio features, Chatroulette takes the idea of voyeurism to a whole new level. Most internet users are likely to have chatted to a total stranger in a chatroom or the like, but this phenomenon allows you to ‘skip’ through strangers and to connect with yet another willing soul floating about in the interweb. Unsurprisingly, you do get the occasional disturbing result - mostly men in various states of undress displaying their unmentionables in all their glory (or not). Taking a leap of faith and finally deciding to give it a try, I went on Chatroulette armed with a zebra mask from Melbourne Zoo.

Exhibit A: My zebra mask, which never fails to induce squints and puzzled looks at the webcam.

The first user I came across was a videogame shopkeeper from Germany, who stopped halfway through a ‘conversation’ to serve a costumer. I forgot to ask him what he sold, but we did bond over our love for Mario Kart. After about ten minutes, I decided that shopkeeper guy was a little tame and that I wanted to skip over to the next user in the hope of coming across someone who could explain what the hype over Chatroulette was all about. BAM. Naked guy pops up on my screen. Next, next, NEXT! A group of five overly-stimulated guys from Taiwan greeted me with friendly peace signs and winks. However, after the polite how-are-yous and where-are-you-froms were done, they abruptly skipped me, in search for a more interesting (and possibly less clothed) user. Tsk. The nerve.

Exhibit B: A group of very excited Asian boys instructed my friend and I to make a love-heart shape together. We happily obliged. Then they skipped us.

After several more frantic clicks on the ‘next’ button, I came across a 20-year-old from Cincinnati, Ohio, who was apparently on Chatroulette for the same reason as me - to see first-hand what this “sociological phenomenon” was all about. Clearly he wasn’t all that impressed; when asked whether or not he would be coming back to the site for more, he snorted loud enough for me to hear it on my speakers and typed, “Nah, I don’t think I’ll meet anyone one as well conversed or as fully clothed as you after this.” Um, thanks I guess? At this point I have to admit that I stumbled upon guy-from-Cincinnati on my second venture out into Chatroulette-land. Oh c’mon, everyone gets just a little bit hooked, right? Or maybe it’s just me.

The verdict:

Chatroulette is surprisingly brutal. You can’t help but have your ego just a little bit bruised when user after user skips you before you even say hello. What’s wrong with me? Is it because I’m not a 30-something guy with a blanket over his lap? One guy hissed at me for a full minute before asking me to display my breasts. As I politely declined (“HELL NO!”), he flipped me off and skipped. It’s easy to understand the hype over Chatroulette, an article by New York magazine describes it as “a blast from the Internet past”, considering the many fences and limits we can now put up (eg: on Facebook, Google) to retain some semblance of privacy in the interweb. Therefore, most people, myself notwithstanding, are going on Chatroulette to supposedly experience the “chaos” that results from eliminating all limits, with the only control one has being the ability to skip a user. With that in mind, it doesn’t take very long to come to the conclusion that a large proportion of users are guys wanting to get some boob-action. But we all knew that going into the website, didn’t we? It’s hard to say for sure, but perhaps sooner or later a certain type of refined gentleman will realise that it’s not worth the effort to get their genitalia out for an audience consisting of Emos, fellow jacking-offers, groups of Asian boys, drunken biker types and young neo-Nazi supporters. Then again, a more developed Chatroulette may let people sort through the strangers in accordance to interests, gender or age, resulting in a kind of online speed dating site. Or it may just fade away, joining the likes of LonelyGirl15 and Mahir (I KISS YOU!) in a long list of internet fads. As for me, anyone who has spoken to me lately can vouch that I have been ranting and raving about Chatroulette, whilst also trying to convince them that I've only been on it twice (honest!). And despite having managed to arrange a dorm-room Chatroulette date with some mates, I think I'm hanging up the zebra mask for the time being, I've seen enough genitalia and drunken bikers to last me a good while.