Around The World In 80 People: Speed baiting on Chatroulette

My first mistake on Chat-roulette was looking for a “connection,” estrogenic and vaginal as that sounds. They say there’s a reason why you’ve met the people you have. With every new encounter and acquaintance, you learn something about yourself, like you’re smoothing the cement that’s helping build your identity and keep it together; or smoothing the pavement that’ll lead to your destiny, if you want to be all Nora “chicks dig my plotlines” Ephron about it.

If so, then Chatroulette, a video chat site that randomly shoves strangers in your face with the simple, albeit bland, interface of their moving mug in a screen above yours and a chat log to the right, could be like a wheel of real-time fate. Ah, comfort in other peoples’ strangeness, I thought. The prospect of truly meeting someone halfway ‘round the world, plucked from the site’s more than 1.5 million daily visitors, seemed like a feasible existential incentive.

Then came the penises. 

First impressions, fast!

On the evening of Maundy Thursday, my noble intention of breaking conversational bread with as many people of different nationalities as I could came to a halt. My first encounter was that of the penile kind, rendered vivid in its uprightness by its user’s horizontally striped sweater yet given mystery by the black and white video treatment he’d applied, a hand brushing up and down over it being my first greeting on Chatroulette.

As I discovered within the next clicks of the “next” option that allows you to eject your current “partner” and get the ball rolling with another random participant, the international greeting isn’t “hello” but a stiff salute of one’s privates. There seemed to be more dudes in this alternate universe; the probable reason for the lethargic scrutiny they directed at this wispy-necked Asian boy, leading to many a disconnection notice.

In my first 20 minutes of Chatroulette, I’d been virtually turned away about 30 times. A burly dad-type from Arkansas; a shirtless teen neo-Nazi; several Middle Eastern men in various states of facial scruffiness; even a white Jabba the Hutt who was rubbing what I can only surmise were his nipples — they’d all passed me over on the conveyor belt of communication as soon as I’d gotten to typing “What’s the point?” Well, except for a Swedish girl who’d made it a point to gyrate her answer to the question while disrobing, demanding I do the same as a trade-off. She misapprehended the point of the “next” button.

An hour and a half and I was down on my luck at finding any sort of relation on this roulette. The longest I’d been able to hold anyone’s attention was with a dark-skinned girl from Norway, the bottom half of her face severed by the cam screen.

 “Why is half of your face hidden?” I asked, wondering if she was an Arab who’d decided to use the positioning of her camera to provide the video chat equivalent of a burka.

 “I just want to,” she replied with a deadened stare. 

 “Okay, then. How old are you, anyway?” I asked.

 “Fourteen,” she answered.

I disconnected. No solicitation of a minor for me tonight, I decided, logging off indefinitely.

Generation “Next”

Obviously, the Norwegian tween had disregarded the 16-and-above age limit indicated under the site’s rules. Just like half of this World Wide Wheel had ignored the second rule to “stay clothed” and like I had underestimated Chatroulette as a “game.”

That it was called that on its homepage made sense because there were people out there who were actually winning at it. There was the hooded musician Merton, for instance, who’d asserted staying power by using piano chat improv on whoever popped up on his screen. Singing a line or two about the people he’d come across goaded them into reacting enthusiastically, or sticking around at the very least. Theatrics go a long way, as it also did for Steve Kardynal, the mustachioed cross-dresser who engaged partners with a pelvis-exhausting performance of Telephone. Both proving that when it comes to getting people’s attention, you can’t go wrong with Lady Gaga or the promise of exposure on YouTube, which was where clips of Merton and Steve’s chat antics had gotten the world to go wilder for its webcams.   

If this was a game, I realized that what we were playing for was attention. And if video support allowed for the simulation of those first few seconds you were supposed to catch it in the real world, then I was screwed. I deal in discourse, not in welcoming smiles. Being live and getting real on the Net with someone I didn’t know was quite awkward, in fact. Growing up in the olden days of mIRC, anonymity was your free pass to be whoever you wanted to be. How we curate our online profiles today, editing our every picture and tweet to fit into the social networking identities we’ve created, is proof we’ve embraced this mentality.     

Until Chatroulette, that is, where it’s all you and whatever additional flair you can muster.

Maybe my mistake was that I was entirely myself. The idea of sitting and talking a while in the one world of Net escape was grand, but how could I interest anyone when my only front was a white wall and a dour expression? 

The following morning, as I readied myself for my close-up, I briefly considered employing a prop for a little more showmanship. A bra strapped to my head, maybe, or the beer-lens sunglasses I got in Vegas. But then the first player appeared: young, white, male, clothed; I would be rejected any second now.

No budge. “Where from?” I asked.

This one was from France, I would find. Nineteen years old. He was on this thing because he wanted to make contacts in the US for a future trip. So far, though, because of the abundance of scrotum, he’d made but one buddy in Holland. Which wasn’t so bad because it was next to his country and “they have ganja there.” 

Soon, our log was several scrolls-down long and we had arrived at the test he had in four hours, his cue for an au revoir. I was satisfied. Maybe this is what it felt like to make a single-serving friend on a railway platform, except that we were on a live chat one. It reminds you of the world’s bigness and that, through a small window, you can be a part of it. There was also this sameness I’d noticed — in our hesitance, our facial expressions, our curiosity. So many people wanting to escape their self-constructed net realities, searching for someone who could look them straight in the face.

I stayed on for a few more seconds before another user had let me into their space, their microwave the focal point instead of them.

 “Please, microwave,” I typed. “Don’t whip out your penis.”

Then, feeling like I was done playing this game, I disconnected.