Adventures with Chatroulette

The Return of the Blog?

Well, hey. What's up? Nothing much. Anyway, I might be reviving this sucker, especially considering that I never finished posting my thoughts on my Favorite 100 Songs of the Decade. So, gonna try and knock that out of the park. I'll work on that later. In the mean time...

Note: This was written about 7 months ago but I never got around to publishing it. Figured "oh what the heck," although I s'pose that chatroullete's 15 minutes of fame are over at this point. But, better late than never, right?

I am here today to tell you about my Adventures with the website known as "chatroulette." It is a cautionary tale--one mired in unhappiness, I'm afraid. I saw many things on this journey of mine. Things I'd never seen before. Things that frightened me in ways that I'd never even dreamed of. Things that made me doubt my faith in humanity. This journey was not an easy one. It was fraught with difficulties and oftentimes I found myself questioning the purpose of the mission altogether. Let's just say that if I were a woman, I would have curled up into a ball and wept. I also probably wouldn't be a very good driver--but that's another story altogether.

Thankfully, I'm a man, and I although at the time it seemed impossible, I eventually was able to traverse through the Jungle of Pervy Old Dudes and tread water in the Lake of the Nasty Euro-Trash Creepers before finally taking shelter near the Cape of Brotherly Love. And while physically I emerged unscathed, the mental torment I was subjected to during my time on chatroulette might be something I carry with me for the rest of my life. I've seen things...

By now a good percentage of you guys have probably heard the buzz on "chatroulette." For those of you who haven't heard and are probably utterly confused over my opening paragraphs, chatroulette is essentially a free website that pairs random strangers from across the world for webcam conversations. At any point you want you can bail on the person you're chatting with by clicking the "next" button, which will direct your webcam to another random individual. There's no sign up, no user names--just you and an anonymous, unblinking stranger. In all likelihood this unblinking stranger will not be wearing pants.

So that right there is the charm of chatroulette. You can hide under the anonymity of the internet while carrying on a conversation with someone from across the globe you probably never would have met otherwise. Unfortunately, that's where the charm ends. If you do decide to log onto chatroulette upon reading this post, please take heed of my words (for this is a cautionary tale, after all): it's all dicks. Figuratively and literally. In my travels I would estimate that over 90% of the people I got connected to were dudes and that about 20% of these dudes were...disrobed. And that's as nicely as I'm going to put it. Remember, this tale is not for the faint of heart.

Before I describe to you in graphic detail the nature of my exploits, I want to remind you fine folk we (for I was not alone, thankfully) were not quite sure what to expect when we first got on chatroulette. I'd like to tell you that we went along with the site's intended purpose and had all sorts of darling conversations with individuals of varying races, ethnicities, and (most importantly) genders. Unfortunately, that would be a bold-faced lie. About five minutes into the exercise we just chucked that whole idea and spent the rest of our time trying to find hot chicks. If this sad reality repulses you, I apologize. However, let it be known that I'm no different than any other red-blooded American male who loves freedom, football, and chatting with babes on the internet. Booyah.

Alright, enough of that. Let's get down to the meat of the piece. For your viewing pleasures I have included with this entry a list of all the clowns and characters you're likely to run into on chatroulette. It ain't pretty. You have been warned.

Name: The Saucy Senior

Classification: Creepy Old Dude

Latin Name: Creepus Maximus

Frequency of Sighting: Less than 1% (which is still way too much)

In a perfect world old people would do exactly what they're supposed to do: play bingo, fall asleep watching tv, and give you money. That's it. Unfortunately, these days not all old people are adhering to the norms this wonderful society has set forth for them. Instead of sitting around listening to old Perry Como tunes or watching VHS tapes of The Ed Sullivan Show these mossbacks are attempting to re-enter the society that shunned them after they started receiving freebies from us in the form of "Medicare." So, you can only imagine my displeasure whenever I come across an old person out of their habitat (I'm looking at you, Buzz Aldrin. You know darn well that Dancing With the Stars should be the epitaph on your overdue tombstone). This displeasure is amplified times infinity when I come across an old person...on the internet. Our domain! Ours! Little known fact: old people using the internet is the unspoken epidemic responsible for much of the world's current ailments.

In relation to chatroulette, I don't think there is any greater horror than perusing the site for some hotties only to get paired up with some goggle-eyed grandpa chicken-pecking at the keyboard. Just the mere thought of that image makes me shudder. Yet, the thing about the ones on chatroulette is that they're not your typical oldbies. Tell me, what kind of old person would spent their time on a site where most of the users are male and a good percentage of those males spend their time in front of the camera tickling their Elmos for all the world to see? That's what I thought: a freaking creepy one.

Name:

Classification: Dudes in Costume

Latin Name: Uglius Insecuras

Frequency of Sighting: Around 5%

This is probably the most harmless entity I came across during my time on chatroulette. Other than an actual girl, a person in a costume is probably the second best thing you could probably hope to see on chatroulette, for a number of reasons:

1. In order to wear said outfit, one must be clothed. Hypothetically.

2. Since old people don't wear anything other than slacks and overalls, the odds of a creepy old guy using a disguise to trick you are relatively low.

3. Because the individual is wearing a mask or costume, you can pretty much assume that they're fugly, which should result in a boost of self-esteem. This kind of small victory is paramount to one's survival on chatroulette.

4. Occasionally the costumes are fairly amusing, as demonstrated in this photo provided by one of my colleagues:

Note: It can be assumed that the individual in the above photo is a costumed masquerader, because we all know that a ninja never reveals himself unless he's about to slice off your head.

So while a dude wearing a costume is certainly preferable to some of the nasty alternatives, that's not to say that this personage is not without its defects. In the best case scenario you'll come across two dudes dressed as Mario and Luigi. In some unfortunate cases, you could end up with something like this:

Catman never sleeps.

In summary, my recommendation when coming across a costume-dweller is to remain in a state of guarded amusement. You can never be too careful on this site, because the moment you stop maintaining that heightened level of alertness is the moment a giant weiner pops up on your screen.

Note: And this is where I stopped working. I guess I couldn't come up with a creative Latin name for people holding signs on chatroulette--not that the other names were barn-burners. Ah well. So yeah, gonna stop here. Kind of lost my legal pad with all ma' notes, so, yeah. But hey, stay tuned. I might be updating this sucker more often.

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