UP students share personal experiences with addictive new Internet phenomenon
By Laura Frazier
The small box on the computer screen fills with the image of a young girl waving a French flag and singing N'SYNC.
A single click of the mouse and up pops a room crowded with giggling teenagers, all peering into the Web cam.
Another click and a grown woman in a princess dress stares back.
The next round shows a person indecently exposed and disgustingly active, followed by a scantily clad female. Only the new Internet phenomenon of Chatroulette allows people like you to meet people like this.
It is no secret that though some Chatroulette users are relatively tame, many are not. The Web site is already notorious for the users who insist on showing the Chatroulette world parts of themselves that would be better kept secret. But regardless of the extreme likelihood that users will fall victim to indecent exposure, UP students and thousands of other random strangers are joining the adventure of Chatroulette.
Chatroulette, which was created by 17-year-old Russian Andrey Ternovskiy, allows people to page through endless encounters with complete strangers all from the comfort of their personal Web cams.
The Web site is simple enough: Two small screens sit side by side, one conveniently labeled "Partner," and the other, "You." Then with each click of the "next" button, the computer flips to a new person, allowing you to talk or type messages to whomever you find. Each time the button is hit, the screen lights up with "searching for a random stranger" before landing on someone else. The game can go on for hours, introducing the user to people from every corner of the world.
Freshman PJ Marcello, the self-proclaimed king of Chatroulette, likes how easy it is to meet all kinds of people.
"They are all just interesting people," he said.
"It's crazy to see how many different people use it."
On Chatroulette Marcello once compared beaches with a girl from Brazil and talked about tsunami warnings with teenagers in Hawaii.
But what makes Chatroulette worthwhile, says Marcello, are the rare times that you meet someone with whom you connect. Out of pure chance, Marcello was talking with a Washington State University student who happened to know his good friend from high school.
"It's cool meeting people from all over the world and the random chance that you meet a friend of a friend," he said.
Marcello has also experienced a Harry Potter fanatic who christened every person in Marcello's room, including their own pet cat, with the name of a character from the popular series.
But according to Marcello, not all encounters have been so clean.
"Once a girl was willing to exchange goods for goods," he said. "But I said that it was neither the time nor the place. And it would never be the right time or place."
Marcello was not surprised, as he knows that audacious requests from random strangers are merely to be expected when using Chatroulette.
Freshman Jordan Lueras thinks that Chatroulette is best put to use as a social activity for users.
"I don't choose to do it alone, but it was fun to do it with friends," he said.
While using the site, Lueras once met a group of Canadian women who convinced him that they knew him, yet failed to even get his name right.
For freshman Kyler Matosich, the last person he expected to meet on Chatroulette was a celebrity. But during a session with friends, the Jonas Brothers showed up on the screen, though it is not certain if it was really the famous band.
"It looked pretty real," he said. "But they claimed that there was no audio, so we were pretty skeptical."
For communication studies professor Michael Mulcrone, who has not used Chatroulette, the idea is not very appealing. But he can see why his students participate in the random matching service as it potentially brings strangers together.
"It can build up a sense of community," he said. "It makes the world seem smaller."
Though Chatroulette is popular with his students, Mulcrone is not sure if it will blur into the past like other fads or if it has staying power.
"It will stick around if someone can make money on it," Mulcrone said. "But a lot of these things are ripe with problems, as social media has unintended consequences."
Matosich thinks that Chatroulette has the potential to be a problem and will eventually fade out.
"If someone doesn't make it illegal or put a ban on it, I think it will phase out on it's own pretty quick," he said.
After hearing the testimony of members of the UP community, I knew that I had no choice but to brave the dark screen of Chatroulette myself. Having used Chatroulette two times before, I had a vague idea of what to expect.
I had heard the rumors of the nasty stuff that the site is known for, so I grabbed my roommate to join me for moral support. Then I hit connect.
The first person I saw was a man in a red snuggy drinking a beer. Classy. He promptly disconnected me.
The next screen showed two boys who explained that they are twins who live in Belgium. One was looking at me expectantly, the other busting out some weird dance move in the background. I convinced them that my roommate and I are also twins, though we look nothing alike. I hit next when we realized that they didn't really speak English.
The next person I met was a soldier in the Irish Army. We were having a pleasant conversation about Las Vegas, but then he asked me if I wanted to see a certain part of his anatomy. Needless to say, I canceled our connection.
Once I had decided that I had seen enough, I closed the screen, leaving behind the mysterious world of the 20,000 other strangers that had been logged on at the same time.
Though there is an allure to joining the lives of the unknown, the risk of being subjected to whatever a stranger wants to show you is enough to instill terror in the hearts of users. Chatroulette is a fun and reasonable social activity, until you realize you are looking at something that you would never choose to see.
Marcello offered a final explanation of Chatroulette.
"I think I will fade out of it," he said. "I have seen a lot of things not for my eyes."
