[LINK] Fwd: The Surreal World of Chatroulette

[Jan Whitaker]

Have any linkers tried it?
Jan


><http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/21/weekinreview/21bilton.html>http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/21/weekinreview/21bilton.html
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>The Surreal World of Chatroulette
>
>Nothing can really prepare you for the latest online phenomenon, Chatroulette.
>
>The social Web site, created just three months 
>ago 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. You see them, they see you. 
>You talk to them, they talk to you. Or not. The 
>site, which is gaining thousands of users a day 
>and lately some news coverage, has a faddish 
>feel, but those who study online vagaries see a 
>glimpse into a surreal future, a turn in the direction of the Internet.
>
>
>Before you rush off to your computer to try 
>Chatroulette, it is only fair to let you know 
>what you’re getting into. Entering 
>Chatroulette is akin to speed-dating tens of 
>thousands of perfect strangers — some clothed, some not.
>
>
>The home pagge is sparse, with two empty boxes — 
>one labeled Stranger, the othher, aptly, You. 
>When you press the Play button, your webcam is 
>activated and you are told that Chatroulette is 
>“Looking for a random stranger.” Up pops a 
>live video and you can chat with the person on 
>the other end. Hit Next and you are confronted with a new stranger.
>
>
>In its simplest form, the site does exactly what 
>its name says — it pulls you into a game of 
>roulette. I used the service ffor the first time 
>a few weeks ago, and I found it both enthralling 
>and distasteful, yet I kept going back for more.
>
>
>At one moment I was sitting in the living room 
>with my wife, and on entering the site, we were 
>siphoned into a dimly lit room with a man who 
>told us he was in Russia. Moments later we were 
>watching a woman dance half-naked in a kitchen 
>in Turkey, and then we stared in shock at a 
>gaggle of laughing college students in a dorm 
>room somewhere. With each click of the mouse we 
>were transported into a stranger’s life — then 
>whiskeed along to another jarring encounter.
>
>
>After five minutes, we disconnected and sat in 
>silence, disturbed by the rawness of some of what we had seen.
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>
>But our curiosity drew us back the next day, 
>this time better prepared. Before we knew it, we 
>were talking to a couple in Napa Valley about 
>wine. We clicked Next and there were three naked 
>men in Amsterdam dancing to Rick Astley music. 
>Next, two computer students in a classroom in 
>China asked us about New York. Then a man told 
>us he was in jail. (Someone who looked like an 
>armed guard stood off in the distance.)
>
>
>It’s very strange, and not just because you 
>are parachuting into someone else’s life (and 
>they yours), a kind of invited crasher. It is 
>also the eerie thrill of true randomness — who, or what, will show up next?
>
>
>There is no way to know the overall number of 
>Chatroulette users. But fewer than 5,000 were 
>using the site at any one time during my first 
>visit. When I checked last week, that number had jumped to 50,000.
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>
>The growth could signal a nascent desire for 
>anonymity online. Our lives used to be private 
>by default, yet with the advent of each new 
>social network, privacy has become increasingly 
>difficult to preserve. Every status update or 
>photo we share online becomes an indelible 
>tattoo of where we’ve been and who we’ve been with.
>
>
>In contrast, Chatroulette is a social Web site 
>that allows you to navigate somewhat incognito. 
>“There’s no log in, there’s no 
>registration, and that’s fundamentally 
>different from 
><http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/business/companies/facebook_inc/index.html?inline=nyt-org>Facebook 
>and 
><http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/business/companies/twitter/index.html?inline=nyt-org>Twitter, 
>where your real persona is tied back to you,” 
>said Sarita Yardi, a doctoral candidate at the 
><http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/g/georgia_institute_of_technology/index.html?inline=nyt-org>Georgia 
>Institute of Technology who studies the role of 
>technology in teenagers’ lives.
>
>
>The Web has long allowed anonymous conversations 
>among strangers. Text-based chat rooms are rife 
>with deceit — people pretendiing they are 
>someone else. Video makes this harder — even if 
>youu’re wearing a mask. Then, too, the 
>anonymity can be fleeting. Screenshots of people 
>using Chatroulette have popped up everywhere. Is one of them you?
>
>
>Michael Wesch, an assistant professor of 
>cultural anthropology at 
><http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/k/kansas_state_university/index.html?inline=nyt-org>Kansas 
>State University who researches how people share 
>and record video on YouTube, said Chatroulette 
>was a “very exciting reuse of existing 
>technologies.” But he warns parents to educate 
>their children. “I can’t say that I would 
>want my kids on there,” Mr. Wesch said, “but 
>I know they are going to eventually find the site anyway.”
>
>
> 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; the rest — well, 
> let’s just say they have debauchery in mind.
>
>
>Chatroulette may or may not move into the 
>mainstream. It may end up as another home for 
>pornography on the Internet, as a New York 
>Magazine article suggested early this month. But 
>some see other possibilities. “Right now 
>it’s kind of like an online ‘Lord of the 
>Flies,’ ” Ms. Yardi said. “I suspect it 
>won’t exist into its current state in the 
>future, but I think it will spin out into a new kind of category online.”


Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
jwhit at janwhitaker.com
blog: http://janwhitaker.com/jansblog/
business: http://www.janwhitaker.com

Our truest response to the irrationality of the 
world is to paint or sing or write, for only in such response do we find truth.
~Madeline L'Engle, writer

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