Sociomechanica

Us engaged in good clean fun, making faces with a stranger on ChatRoulette

I was hanging out with some friends last night and after a few glasses of wine, I told them about a new site that’s being passed around the blogosphere — ChatRoulette.

BoingBoing says of ChatRoulette:

Chatroulette! is a new videochat site that leaves you with an undeniably WTF feeling. It randomly connects you with another stranger, and there seem to be thousands online. Don’t like who you’re looking at? Just hit “Next” and you’ll be linked to another user. I’d say that the participants are 65 percent dudes in dorm rooms, 30 percent men masturbating, and 5 percent “other.” In ten minutes of clicking the “Next” button I saw multiple individuals rapping into the camera, holding up signs urging women to bare their breasts, and an endless variety of penis sizes and shapes. [Link]

Despite the dire glimpse into what happens to mankind (and I do mean MANkind) when given anonymity and a video connection, the concept intrigues me. Can we somehow cut through the pervs and use this to legitimately connect with strangers?

My friend did just that. As the outgoing woman she is, she surfed through the random nakedness in various states of arousal until she found someone who was  fully clothed and curious about the site as we were. In no less than 5 minutes, we ascertained that he was from Atlanta, was a history teacher, and had a Brittany Spaniel, who was laying beside him.

I see all sorts of legal troubles happening to this site. Despite a TOS that would absolve them of liability (uh huh, sure), they only require the minimum age of participants to be 16. So that means that users can expose themselves to minors, and perchance get minors to expose themselves to them. And there’s nothing to stop them from taking screenshots or recording the video that is happening on their monitor.

Podcasts like Dial-a-Stranger and blogs like PostSecret show us that random people can start dialogs. And with the popularity of text chat-only sites like Omegle, OnlyChat, and AnybodyOutThere.com, this was bound to happen sooner or later.

Don’t get me wrong — I am a big fan of free and open unregulated internet, but I fear, however, that the site’s capacity for creeps will require some kind of regulation or age verification wall. In any case, I look forward to seeing what happens. Meanwhile, hilarious screengrabs like this (warning: those links are kinda NSFW) get passed around the internet, which is priceless. (See right)