The premise behind Chatroulette is a user turns on their webcam and is randomly connected to another user (hence spinning the wheel and landing on someone). The thing is this website shortly gained global attention. Many times users are paired with an individual halfway across the world, thousands of miles away. It has the capacity to enrich people in foreign cultures. One could even do sociological experiments, which just in the case I have done. I actually did do a couple of interviews to see global perspectives on the website.
There is a high potential for running into a penis on this site. These days, in 2012 there is less penis. Chatroulette got a bad wrap because as more interest was circulating around the site more individuals who practice in perversion were drawn to it. The penis’ flocked to the site, and it really served as a detriment to the clear beneficial use this site has. Just as soon as people realized how cool the site was it was dampened by the innumerable amount of penis. It got to the point that TechCrunch actually did an informal study that reported users had a 1 in 8 chance of seeing penis. That report was published in March 2010. In June 2012 it was reported that the creators of Chatroulette had created some sort of software that actually recognizes penis’ and furthermore would automatically block that individuals IP address (internet protocol, not individual penis). Now that is indeed more impressive than the idea of Chatroulette itself.
The mentioned report actually had compiled a lot of statistics, in that users were likely to be paired up with someone in the United States at just under 50% and the next likely user would be in France, here’s the graph:
The information has greatly changed since then. Although there is no tangible evidence some new conclusions can be made. First off, the number of users in Turkey, Italy and Chile have most certainly increased. All one needs to do is go on for him or herself and see. Secondly the penis phenomenon has been severely lowered. It exists but not 1 in 8, its more like 1 in 50. What has remained constant is the request to see breasts from men. The report found that the “overall pevert rate was 13% of users.” It also broke it down by country:
Also it seems more likely for a man to stop spinning if a female is on the other end. The report offered examples of rouge actuaries, with images like the following very common:
The vast classifiable users are men. 72% of users were men, by themselves, 11% was no one in the room, and only 8% were women. This means 72% of these men were more likely to get no one instead of a female, and 13% of the 72% of men were perverts, meaning they must have been very disappointed pervs. Here is the visual breakdown the report from TechCrunch provided:
After extensive interviews with individuals across all walks of life this is what can be reported:
Girls stop at guys with pretty eyes. Clearly this statement useless to other female and gay men, but what has become clear to me is that many guys try to coerce girls into stopping for them. On occasion it is so they can try to see her boobs. Some guys will play music so girls will stop, some guys display their abs and others wear costumes. I personally was not trying to solicit any boobage, but sometimes when a girl would stop at me, she would tell me I have beautiful eyes. It happened 6 times in one sitting (which lasted approximately 90 minutes). So the thought of peacocking my eyes came to mind. I put on a shirt that extunated the color of my eyes (blue on blue) and it did nothing.
I have also noticed that the amount of girls who are “freaky” has increased. It may be just my experiance (or my sexy eyes), but one particular individual who I stopped at was Melissa from Paris. She spoke English very poorly but more importantly she had a smile that could cure depression. Never in my life have I seen such smile. She asked me if I was horny, expecting me to say “but of course mademoiselle,” but in fact I did not. I had told her I was interested in writing a piece about Chatroulette and asked her if I could ask a couple of questions. First off I wanted to know exactly how this “getting down,” thing she wanted to do was supposed to happen. I mean, she’s in Paris and I’m in Chicago. She exaplins that she takes her clothes off while the other individual masterbates. I didn’t ask her why she does this because I knew, she gets off at men looking at her like that. She would periodically stop the conversation and just remove a certain article of clothing. the conversation lasted approximatley 20 minutes and ended with a view I’ll never forget. She asked me to request her on skype. I maybe did.
Other consistent factors is how fast one is to judge. Back in 2009 I had a huge Israeli flag in my room where I used Chatroulette, it hung in the background of the shot. Whenever I would land on someone in the Middle East, North Africa or South Eastern Europe it would immediately result in some sort of Anti-Semitic rhetoric. I don’t mind it, because I would truly be surprised if one of those people was really into the fact I’m a Jew.
There are a lot of children on the site, which is quite disconcerting. Small children who are exposed to penis are usually filled with trauma later in life. I interviewed a 14 year old. I began with asking him why such a young individual was on a site that has the capacity to be so vulgar, to which he responded: “cuz I can b.” Immediately I felt immensely out of touch with the current generation of tweens and future teens. These kids usually come in bunches and probably giggle at the mature content like all kids would do.
Other women are not attractive and perhaps are engaging in the same thing men do a little too similarly, for instance this was one of my experiences:
(She asked twice)
Perhaps women in Argentina are like men from Arkansas (not hillbillies, but Billy Clinton’s).
I think the final most consistent thing is how balls-to-the-wall the hate is on this website. It isn’t all genuine, it is just a forum for people to get away with things they normally wouldn’t be able to in society. For instance people have no reservations to calling ugly people ugly, fat people fat and foreign looking individuals strange. It is probably a very unhealthy thing, but for every hair raising provoker, there is a person who is incredibly interested, nice and cordial. It really goes both ways with no middle. Well actually, there is a middle ground, its the split second two users see each other and simultaneously click “next.”
Chatroulette has come far. Some conclusions that can be made are: it is better to do socially, in that two or more people should be on each end. It would also be wise not to engage in arguments based on ideology, discussion is for sure warranted, but arguments will surely spoil the moods of all users. It would be wise to be open, nice, and smile. Smiling does one of two things, the first of which is nothing, the second is a moral disarming of the firewall strangers put up.
As is the cliche, only time will tell what the social trajectory of Chatroulette will be. In the meantime, I’ll keep expanding my knowledge of different cultures and people through this medium.
A very good piece.
ReplyDeleteCriticisms: one case of misspelled word (explains), several instances where commas would enhance reading flow.
Approbation: Genuinely humorous at times, good supplemental graphs, screenshots.
On a final note, I presume you certainly added Melissa from Paris, and that you sincerely enjoyed the exchanged.
Well done.
Well Thank You Sir.
ReplyDelete