Urban Explorerer

On Monday evening, inspired by Jason Kottke, I spent some time exploring Chatroulette. The concept of Chatroulette is simple… connect via webcam to a random stranger. And in this case, simplicity is sublime.

In an article for New York magazine, Sam Anderson writes:

The internet has always been defined by (and drawn much of its energy from) the tension between chaos and control—and over the last ten years, web culture has skewed heavily toward control… Once you dive in, there’s no way to manage the experience… there’s only the perpetual forward motion of “next.”

Over the course of about 45 minutes, I was connected to hundreds of people. A majority disconnected within mere seconds (most without saying or typing a single word). While I did see dozens of close-ups of guys masturbating, one pair of female breasts, and many signs imploring “Show Your Tits”, unlike Kottke I saw no one having sex (as long as you discount the guy having sex with a plush raccoon doll, and the obvious porno someone was playing).

Many connections were to roomfuls of people, who seemingly were using the service as a form of entertainment. And for good reason, as I stumbled across numerous people performing for the camera in non-sexual ways: lifting weights, playing beer pong, smoking pot, playing music, cutting what appeared to be cocaine… one girl even performed a well-choreographed hip-hop dance.

As Sam Anderson hypothesizes, the point of Chatroulette isn’t necessarily to connect with people:

Meeting a new person is thrilling, in a primal way—your attention focuses completely, if only for a nanosecond, to see if the creature in front of you has the power to change your life for better or worse. ChatRoulette creates this moment over and over again; it privileges it over actual conversation. Eventually, I realized that clicking “next” was not so much a rejection as it was pure curiosity, like riding a train past an apartment building at night, looking briefly into as many lit windows as possible.

In the end, I did manage to exchange a few words with a couple of strangers, although I had only one meaningful conversation: I chatted for around 60 seconds with a guy offering to play a song on his guitar… interestingly/sadly/ironically, he was also in NYC.

Update: 10 types of Chatroulette users

Senator Judd Gregg of New Hampshire, the senior Republican on the Budget Committee, welcomed Mr. Obama’s invitation [to a health care reform policy discussion]. But like many in his party, he expressed concern that the session would be used as “an arena for political theater.”

—Robert Pear and David M. Herszenhorn, in their NY Times story “On Health Bill, G.O.P.’s Road Is a New Map”

Yes, because the Republicans are known for their diligent opposition to political theater…