The Surreal World of Chatroulette

Hugh Pickens writes "The New York Times reports that Chatroulette, the social Web site created by a 17-year-old Russian named Andrey Ternovskiy, drops you into an unnerving world where you are connected through webcams to a random, fathomless succession of strangers from across the globe. The site activates your webcam automatically; when you click 'start' you're suddenly staring at another human on your screen and they're staring back at you, at which point you can either choose to chat (via text or voice) or just click 'next,' instantly calling up someone else. Entering Chatroulette is akin to speed-dating tens of thousands of perfect strangers — some clothed, some not. You see them, they see you. You talk to them, they talk to you. 'It's very strange, and not just because you are parachuting into someone else's life (and they yours), a kind of invited crasher,' writes Nick Bilton. 'It is also the eerie thrill of true randomness — who, or what, will show up next?' The Web has long allowed anonymous conversations among strangers. Text-based chat rooms are rife with deceit — people pretending they are someone else. Video makes this harder — even if you're wearing a mask. 'From my experience on the site, echoed by those I've spoken to, it seems as if 90 percent of users are genuinely looking for novel and unexpected conversation,' add Bilton. 'The rest — well, let's just say they have debauchery in mind.'"

Comments

Hum.

[bbqsrc]

While this sounds interesting, I believe that somebody has finally found an even more useless form of social networking. A standing ovation for him indeed.

Re:Hum.

[ZorbaTHut]

I'm always curious by people talking about "useless forms of social networking". I mean, what's the supposed purpose of social networking sites? Is there a fixed goal? A constitution? Should we measure a social networking site by how many jobs it fills, or how many dates are had through it?

As I see it, there are people, and they chat. That's social. That's the essence of humanity.

How can you get any more, or any less, useful than that?

In summary: what forms of social networking do you consider "useful", and why?

Re:Hum.

[bbqsrc]

I'm always curious by people talking about "useless forms of social networking". I mean, what's the supposed purpose of social networking sites? Is there a fixed goal? A constitution? Should we measure a social networking site by how many jobs it fills, or how many dates are had through it?

As I see it, there are people, and they chat. That's social. That's the essence of humanity.

How can you get any more, or any less, useful than that?

In summary: what forms of social networking do you consider "useful", and why?

The types where actual interaction occurs between two or more human beings with a common understanding of some sort. My understanding of social networking involves some kind of game of watching your number of friends increment.

Basically, I feel social networking destroys the essence of communication: a wall of text, with a photo next to it, passing comment of amusement about a "how long is your dong" survey and seemingly nothing more. I find it hard to believe a real relationship can develop through such a medium.

Re:Hum.

[thesandtiger]

I make "off-label" use of social networking sites:

When live.yahoo.com was up (basically you broadcast a webcam to whoever comes into your channel), I used it to practice several dozen voices, dialects and accents - everything from something simple like a "public school british" accent to insane cartoon voices. I did this by reading books aloud in those voices. I think I had something like 400 people in my channel once when I was reading Mein Kampf doing on the fly translation to pig-latin with an elmer fudd voice. Another time I got over 1000 hits when it was just me staring at the screen (in fact, I was reading on another monitor but people couldn't see that) while drinking beer. What could possibly interest 1000 people in that? Call it performance art.

On facebook, I use that ONLY for work related people and don't friend anyone who isn't related to work, even if they are friends of mine in real life. It's interesting, to me, to see just how much personal shit people at work are willing to share with me despite our not having a "real" friendship.

With linked in I do exactly the opposite - I only make links to people I don't work with.

With chat roulette, it's fantastic as a way to try out different kinds of things. I've done things like pretended my microphone couldn't pick up my voice despite it having no problem picking up the music in the background and a friend off-camera talking to me (most people don't get it - they just think my mic is broken when it obviously isn't), or I just ask questions of people that I would never ask of someone else - usually about bodily functions, their income, things like picking their nose - and it's interesting the responses I get.

Of course, I also use some of these things (with alternate accounts) in the way that they are intended - as a way to meet and stay in touch with friends - but I think I have more fun being strange than I do otherwise.

Is randomness the antidote to group think?

[Z8]

As people have pointed out before, this system may have already been co-opted by spammers and such, but I like the idea of being connected to people at random. The internet was supposed to have broadened everyone's horizons by allowing communication between people of different countries, backgrounds, etc. But then everyone just found the people who reinforce their pre-existing opinions. So sure, I'm talking with someone around the world, but we're both, say, talking about linux wifi drivers and complaining about the same company. It's arguably worse for political thought, where either corporations control mainstream thought, and/or conspiracy theorists only pay attention to the one blog with the same conspiracies.

People need more opportunities for true randomness, where they actually do sample evenly from the world's population and interact with someone.