ChatRoulette is completely insane.
When you press play and your web cam turns on, you enter a land of utter and complete crackpot madness. And I love it.
If you don’t know what I’m talking about — hello slow news day DP centerpiece — ChatRoulette is a web site where you video chat with a random stranger anywhere in the world. You can see them and they can see you. Don’t like what you see? Press next and you’ll get another stranger. Strangers can next you too. It is simultaneously demoralizing and totally thrilling.
The site is admittedly creepy. It’s used for pretty much anything but chatting. People aren’t there to make friends. They’re there to watch the show.
The show is pretty weird and strangely homoerotic. ChatRoulette is about 25 percent guys jerking off, 25 percent shirtless dudes just waiting for the opportunity to jerk off, 45 percent real chat-worthy people, and 5 percent crazy people dressed like giant cats, a Pikachu, or that guy from V for Vendetta (really, this has happened to me).
So yeah, it’s pretty gross. If I mention ChatRoulette to friends, most of them give me a look and lecture me on how disgusting it is and how depressing the people are who use it. And I’ll admit, the first time I signed on ChatRoulette and saw person after person sitting by themselves in front of their web cams, I was a little sad for them. But then I thought to myself — how am I any different? Do people on the other side of the camera see pathetic and lonely written across my face? Instant video chat means instant judgment and maybe that’s unfair.
It’s easy to say that ChatRoulette users are creepy or lonely, but I think most of them are just looking for that last 5 percent. They want to see something absurd. ChatRoulette feeds into our innate and subconscious obsession with the grotesque. Secretly we want to see a fat guy in a bra, or a lewd sexual act, or a celebrity in his natural element (my friend claims she chatted with the Jonas Brothers).
So I say, ignore the naysayers and indulge in a little voyeurism. Whether it’s the thrill of being watched or the thrill of peeking in on somebody else, you’re allowed to like it! Besides, you’re not going to see any of these people again anyway.
Just don’t unzip your pants. Please.
