Are You Feelin' Lucky?

A relatively new internet phenomenon has caught on: Chatroulette.

The premise is simple: The site pairs you with a random videochat partner. You can click "next" any time, or stay with your current pairing.

So, all you need is a webcam and you're ready!

The users on the site can be normal people looking for an interesting experience, someone looking to gross other people out, creepy guys looking for girls to talk to or someone with a funny gag.


Then things start tripping into psychedelic performance-art territory. As a friend says, "It's the Internet. UNFILTERED." The big lure is basically seeing something strange--or doing something so strange that you blow your partner's mind. A friend reports a man holding up a sign that said, "Assroll?"--and promptly rolling over backwards, naked. (Nudity is hard to avoid.) Also, challenges are big--successively crazier things. You might start by eating a page of your favorite book. You might end by calling your mother and screaming that you're being murdered. Think of YouTube, with even more exhibitionism because everything is live and nothing is being recorded.

CHANGE IN SOCIAL INTERACTION:

There’s a sense of freedom that comes from knowing that you’re speaking to strangers who you’re never going to see again that enhances the experience. You can say whatever you want to anyone without any consequences, and that makes every conversation you have on the site so much different from a normal conversation. It basically allows you to have the interactions you wish you could have on a day-to-day basis because no one feels the need to adhere to society’s normal social standards. Which probably explains the large amount of penises.