Feb 16 2010
Don’t Next Me! My Time Spent on Chat Roulette
If you haven’t yet experienced Chat Roulette, you’re either missing out or incredibly lucky. Allow me to explain. Chat Roulette is, as you’d probably expect, well, chat roulette. Simply by going to the website (you can access it by clicking HERE), you’re paired up in a video chat room with a total stranger. If the person has a webcam (and really, it’s not much fun to chat with someone who doesn’t), you’ll see the results of your roulette “spin.” It could be a cute girl from Brazil, it could be a man dressed as a cat, or it could be much, much worse. I decided to spend some time on Chat Roulette and for the most part, it was pretty interesting.
Sometimes it feels just like this.
The first time I tried out Chat Roulette, I was at home and used my laptop. I don’t have a webcam connected to my laptop, so it was pretty tough to keep the interests of strangers for more than a few seconds. And that was if I was lucky enough to get someone to stick around at all, being that almost everyone “nexted” me immediately once they found out that I didn’t have a webcam. “Nexting,” by the way, is simply clicking the “Next” button at the top of the screen to kick out the present stranger and get hooked up with a new one.
I found my best strategy was to type “Hello” right away, in hopes that the stranger would respond without leaving the chat room. If I got a response, I had just a few seconds to keep the stranger around, so I’d either compliment their features or clothes (“Nice glasses,” or “I like your hat”) or try to make them laugh. I was more successful than I thought I’d be, but that just means I was able to chat for over a minute. My two most “successful” chats involved a kid in Chile stoned out of his mind and a goth girl accompanied by her scary-mask-sporting friend. I realized that to really expereince Chat Roulette, I was going to need to have a webcam on my computer, too.
Yikes.
I spent this past weekend at my aunt and uncle’s house and, fortunately for me, they have a webcam on their computer. Firing up Chat Roulette, I immediately realized that I probably should have put on a hat or combed my hair. It’s really long right now, and since I’m Jewish, I wasn’t blessed with the type of hair that flows nicely or ends in gentle wisps. No, I’ve got a full-on Jewfro, and without any product or a hat, it looks like a disaster. It’s not quite a Seth Rogen/Jonah Hill model, but it’s big and unkempt. At least I still have my hair, right? Anyway, the strangers on Chat Roulette were more than happy to comment on it. More than a few times I was greeted with “Nice Jewfro,” but I suppose that if I’m going to get made fun of for something, it could be a lot worse than my hair.
Occasionally my girlfriend would peer in over my shoulder, which would elicit demands of “Take of your shirt!” or “Show your tits!” She didn’t play along.
When my girlfriend wasn’t around, I managed to chat with a very cute Brazilian girl who wore glasses. I complimented her glasses, she complimented my smile, and it was a match made in Chat Roulette heaven. Thankfully, I retained enough high school Spanish (yes, I am aware they speak Portuguese in Brazil) to communicate for a few minutes, and after being battered and bruised by previous strangers, I found a sweet girl willing to chat for a bit. It did wonders for the ego, as it’s quite humbling to be placed in a chat room with a cute girl, only to have her “Next” you before you can so much as say “hello.”
Other highlights included a group of guys drinking beers at a house Florida. I expected insults and belligerence, but they were actually pretty cool guys. It turns out that Chat Roulette is a big part of their pregame, and I imagine that they’re not the only ones to embrace this form of instant entertainment. I also came across two college girls in Arkansas who were drunk and stoned. I asked if Chat Roulette was what they did before going out at night. They giggled, which prompted me to ask if Chat Roulette was the night. Indeed it was.
Sometimes, you can get lucky.
The last highlight – or lowlight, really – was a guy’s erect member in all its glory on my computer screen. I couldn’t have pressed “Next” any quicker. When the next stranger arrived, I told him how thankful I was that he wasn’t a giant meatpipe. He laughed pretty hard and clapped his hands, as it was apparent that he’s had the same unfortunate experience as me.
I think I’ve had my fill of Chat Roulette, but then again, I don’t have a webcam. If you’re looking for a quick time-waster, I can’t think of too many options that’d be better. You’re certainly going to meet some, uh, interesting people, but if looking at male genitalia isn’t your thing, you might want to avoid Chat Roulette altogether.
Anyone else use Chat Roulette? What was the weirdest/funniest thing you saw? Let me know.
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Extremely creepy.
need to try this too, once i get a webcam…
here’s one for you: http://www.chilloutzone.to/video/banter-dude-vs-chat-roulette.html
I’m trying it now, everyone appears to hate me.
I was on for like 15 minutes and saw way too many rigs.
I saw an old man creepily reading poetry in a foreign language….win?
Or mostly trolls from 4chan…
Guy pooping on a baby, i even took a picture.
note to self: buy a webcam and a classic wolverine costume 2 sizes too small
Just last night I saw a group of doctors with masks on. They showed me some tools and stuff; said they were on break. Very bizarre/creepy but totally worth it.
@ Wilson
You gotta be kidding. Wow.
@ Emily
That’s one of the best experiences I’ve heard of yet. Very cool.
This is weird. I think I am going to pass on this pop culture phenom.
Deer Hunter picture!
Madison, are you kidding me? You only saw ONE penis? I was just on this thing for half an hour and we saw no less than twenty dongs. Once we saw a cute girl, then the camera panned down….to her giant dong. This thing made me hate humanity more than I ever thought I could.
@Madison sadly i’m not. I used the report button, hoping someone would remove that.
you should try omegle.com….you’ll talk to random people but there’s no webcam…just as creepy and funny depending on who you get paired up with.
I heard of chat roulette the first time on saturday or so but now two times since then? Isn’t this site around for a while now? how come that people are talking about it now?
Anyway yesterday I was at a party and someone put up a laptop and got to chatroulette. We where a bunch of about 15 people, a little drunk, and my experience is that even though you might think that would help to get into chats quite the oposite is true. If there are 10 people talking you don’t understand the voice coming from the screen and you can’t really ask intelligent people unless you are the borg and everybody has the same thought.
Also we got lots and lots of masturbating guys. thats boring. but our crowd was enthusiastic for seeing two people fucking.
So my conclusio is that chat roulette might be fun, but in reality it doesn’t really work because for every minute you spent time chatting, you spent 3 minutes getting nexted. There should be a 5 seconds minimum time where you can’t next someone – maybe then the concept would work. (it would be good for the server too I guess)
So, I can go to this site and see a bunch of sad depraved shit or dudes jackin’ it?
I can’t imagine why this isn’t more popular…
I saw tons of dudes masturbating and one guy fucking a stuffed racoon. I was hating this site intensely until I finally had a decent conversation with a cute British girl and then of course the next person up was some dude stroking it. Fuck you for only having seen one penis and giving me the curiosity to check this abomination out Madison. Fuck you.
@ matt
The more I read these comments, the more I think I must have really lucked out.
Thanks for the laugh.
Theres a guy on there dressed like Cobra Commander.
[...] know Madison already wrote about his experiences with Chat Roulette, but here are some of my highlights in my very brief time [...]
An Spanish version –> http://www.chatego.com
Hope it helps
Hola me llamo amin
I just want to let everyone on the internet know that I started using Chatroulette when it first came out
not when these bullshit tv shows starting bringing its popularity up
fuck you mainstream tv
now there’s gheys on chatroulette.
I am the originator
i was kicked with no reason
so i went and checked it out, hundreds of “nexts” later it was definitely 90% guys, but i didn’t see one penis. i did see some titties a few times (same girl who kept nexting me)