Chatroulette – Spreading happiness around the world

I work in online marketing, so when a new social site starts getting some buzz, I feel that it is my job to jump in and investigate until I understand it and I am able to demonstrate its usefulness.  Initially I saw no use for Chatroulette other than providing a great way to kill hours on end.

Chatroulette is a new site that pairs two random people together in a video chat room.  The site was launched in November by 17 year old Russian boobhunter Andrey Ternovskiy.  When you visit the site you click “Play” in the upper left hand corner and you are prompted to identify your webcam.  You will then see a video of a random person.  They will look at you, you will look at them, and then one of you will hit the “Next” button.  This will move the “Nexter” on to a new chat with a new person, and the “Nextee” will stare blankly at the screen trying to figure out why life is so cruel.  Then they will hit the Next button.  I’ve seen the site have anywhere from 17,000 to 65,000 users online at one time, most of those users riding the Next button the whole time they’re on the site.

Chatroulette is web anarchy.  Sure there’s a 17 yr old kid in Russia that supposedly fields emails and complaints about inappropriate content on the site, but lets be honest.. people are behaving as they’d behave if they thought they could get away with anything.  Remember how fun it was to prank call people before call ID?  It’s like that.  On Chatroulette there are no manners, no compassion, no “do the right thing.”   There’s only the id, surfing through videos of random strangers at an alarming rate.  Think of the Dating Game, only this time there are no questions, no barrier, and no commercial breaks.  Instead there’s you and a bunch of dicks.  Literally.  One out of every ten videos on Chatroulette features a guy punishing his weiner.  About 95% of Chatroulette users are guys that want to see boobs.  These guys spend what must be countless hours in the lab determining the best method of getting a girl on the other side of the internet to take her shirt off.  Often you will see users that have created signs requesting boobs.  Here are some examples:

- Boobs for Haiti

- Boobs or the kitty dies

- “I’m sick in bed and can’t go to spring break, help me make the most out of it?”

Within moments of my first visit I knew that Chatroulette would be a goldmine for understanding online human behavior.  As I mentioned above, there’s no need to worry about feelings on this site.  There are no messy breakups or awkward silences.  If you don’t like what you see, you hit Next and you move on to the next person.  Understanding this, it’s pretty likely that a guy in his mid 30′s would get Nexted quite a bit since the majority of the people using this site are boob seekers or wagging penises.

After spending some time on the site sans camera I noticed that a lot of users seemed to be using feeds of videos that were obviously not live, or videos that were in fact live but were definitely not the person I was chatting with.  This gave me an idea.  If it’s possible to chat as someone else by using a feed from a live chat site like Justin.TV or Stickam.com, I could experience what it’s like for all types of people to use Chatroulette.  After Googling the right key words, I figured it out.  This post isn’t a tutorial about how to troll live chat sites, but if you buy me a beer or ask nicely I may be able to point you in the right direction.

Here are some interesting learnings I took from my experience:

When chatting as a normal looking late 20′s/30′s guy:

Reaction from guy alone: They’ll look at you, confirm you’re not a girl and then hit Next.  Sometimes even though you are clearly a guy they’ll give you the ol’ A/S/L?  As soon as they see that your S is an M you’re Nexted, even if you felt a bond because he was wearing your favorite team’s jersey.  It hurts, but you get over it, because the next video might be boobs.

Reaction from guy with a friend: They’ll laugh at you, for something.  Your hair, your eyebrows, the wine cooler in your hand.  They’ll find something and they will let you HAVE IT.  Then, Next, back on the boobhunt.  Oh one or both of these guys is probably shirtless.

Reaction from girl alone: NEXT.  Sometimes, *confused disapproving look* then NEXT.

Reaction from girl with friends: Giggles, NEXT.  Unless of course you look like you’re in a boy band, then they will ask you questions about where you’re from and they’ll say they like your hair and muscles (even though there are clearly no muscles being shown in your video box.)  Then, when you think you’ve finally found yourself in a Chatroulette conversation lasts longer than 30 seconds, you’re Nexted right after you tell them you’re from Nebraska.  Way to let me down Nebraska.

Reaction from a penis: Wiggle wiggle.  Delayed Next.  Sometimes the Next takes way too long or doesn’t come at all.  Gross.

When chatting as a normal looking late 20′s/30′s girl:

Guy alone: Becomes started/excited.  Sits up in chair.  Waves hi.  When you don’t respond, types “Hi!” Does anything to get your attention.  Will sit there staring at the screen for 2 minutes waiting for you to respond.  If you do respond they request boobage in the first 3 sentences.  Some are holding signs that show messages like the ones above.  Some don’t have cameras and they open up with the boob request because they know they don’t have much time.  Some know they have no shot so they aim to shock you by showing a photo of someone that’s hanged themselves or is spreading their butt cheeks apart.  For those warped guys it’s ok for you to say “Aww that’s cool, come on camera so I can see you” and when they do you Next them.  Major pwnage.

Guy with friend: They will cheer.  They will chant “Boobs! Boobs! Boobs! Boobs!” They will call their friends in from other rooms, they will tell the person they are talking to on their phone.  They will flash you their abs and various other body parts.  You type an emasculating insult and they laugh and go along with it because you have boobs.  You think back to being picked last on your basketball team and you Next them.  Hard.

Girl alone: 75% of the time a girl by herself will Next you instantly when she sees another girl.  25% of the time they will start chatting with you.  10% of the time these girls will want to trade “tits 4 tits.”  What you do here is between you, God, and this incredibly friendly girl on the other side of a video chat.

Girl with friends: Most of the time they’re on the hunt for some dude they can gang up on and ask stupid questions to, but sometimes they will say, as if trained by professional Chatroulette boobhunters, “Show us your tits!”

Penis: Wiggling intensifes.  One hand types “You like?”

When chatting as an old obese guy eating chips and playing World of Warcraft:

Guy alone: Next.

Guy with friend: Cracked up back slapping laughter, then Next.

Girl alone: Stunned, worried look.  Then nice conversation (seriously.)

Girl with friends: Screams, Next.

Penis: No change really.  Wiggle on.

Most of the findings above are to be expected.  I’m left wondering how this experience will change when more people find out about the site and there is an increase in the amount of women visiting Chatroulette.  Will there be an influx of female exhibitionists that hang out naked all day waiting for a reaction?  What will happen if the site gets so big that Oprah is talking to sobbing  moms about how Chatroulette led their daughters to the Red Light District and their sons to register as sex offenders?  For me this site is excellent birth control because there is NO WAY IN HELL I would ever bring a daughter into a world where she can be visually assaulted by an army of video penises.

So really, is it useless?  Just another internet time waster?  The answer is: No.

After playing around with this site for 3 days I found the true value of Chatroulette.  You can make people around the world smile. How do you do that?  By showing them a video of themselves with a thought cloud that reads “I wish I had balls in my mouth.”

You’re welcome world.

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Posted in: Everywhere.
Tagged: Tech