Internet’s Roulette

Click. Three girls from Maine are taking shots every time they see an Asian. I disappoint them and they disconnect. Click. Some guy is masturbating. On camera. Hurried click.

The concept seems uplifting to the naïve user. A service that connects any human in the world for a face-to-face interaction seems like the last step toward breaking down socioeconomic barriers that segregate mankind. However, I was soon to find that ChatRoulette is a savage, untamed free-for-all that easily belittles one into a state of total social anxiety.

When you visit the site, you are presented with another random human from somewhere in the world.

You have three alternatives at this point: engage, reject or be rejected. In the 30 minutes my friends and I used ChatRoulette, we were “F9ed” (the verb for being rejected on ChatRoulette) more than 100 times, often with looks of disgust or annoyance on the other user’s face as they reached to their keyboard to press next.

Those who did want to talk to us were few and far between, most of the time asking us to perform random sex acts. One out of maybe 20 people will be a normal person, but it’s surprising and a little scary how quickly you can find some level of connection with them. In fact, we met at least three students from IU, or so they claimed.

The Internet is quickly becoming the last refuge of a scoundrel in a world where everything is rapidly shifting to connectivity.

While the majority of the Internet’s society wants to conform to normality and structure, there is a dissident population on the Web that pushes for chaos and disorder in our online experience.

Some of our most recognizable Web sites strive to maintain order and organize the Web: Facebook, Wikipedia and Google are just a few examples. Other sites fight this normalization and strive for individuality: 4chan, Stumblr and now ChatRoulette are all examples.

This dualism within the Internet is largely a reflection of its status as one of the last frontiers for mankind. It started as a digital wilderness, with no central organization – only a lonely address bar to guide the way. As the Internet grew, some sites expanded and became popularized as others fell to the wayside. As the wilderness of the Internet is tamed as much as America was, there is a dissident population standing its ground against the onslaught of grouping and classification.

ChatRoulette is a beautiful example of this. There is no order, no reason and no preference to who you see. It is completely idiotic, thrilling, chilling, powerful and perverse. And it’s totally awesome.


E-mail: halderfe@indiana.edu