I was a little apprehensive about it. Strangers! What do you say? Plus I guess I had some preconceived notions as in, mostly teens and 20-somthings and a whole lotta sex and porn. Then there are the rudeness possibilities. What if someone just clicks away from you on first site? What if you do that to them?
But I guess the worst that can happen is hurt feelings or maybe a glimpse of a naked body part, so I decided to overcome my fear and give it a try.
The site is pretty plain, boxes for the two web cams, with the “stranger” at the top and a big box on the right for the chat text. On the top right are the words Users online. This number has stayed static at 20000 all morning, so I take it with a grain of salt.
There are three buttons: Play, Report and Stop. After you press play the first time, it turns into Next. It’s the important button — your safe word — it gets you in and gets you out and onto the next person.
My first “stranger” was a woman, no face, just her cleavage and she was lying in bed. OK, first preconception confirmed. Without speaking to her, I clicked past. (Who’s the rude one now, eh? I didn’t even try to engage her conversation!)
Next was a guy who didn’t have a video camera, just a photo of an average guy — not young, maybe 40s or 50s. He greeted me with bjr. Who knows what that means? So I opened another window and started searching for the meaning of this internet acronym wondering if it was a long form of the better known bj. Then his second text came through qui etes vous?. Oh Jill, jump to conclusions much? This isn’t a sexual overture, the guy speaks French.
Cool, I’m on a “use-my-French” kick and here’s a stranger to practice on. We establish that he’s in France, it’s his first time on Chat Roulette and in fact, I am the first person he’s talking to. And would it be possible for me to show him my breasts?
Moving on.
Next guy is in Ohio, maybe 30-ish, first time try at Chat Roulette and he’s already spoken to people in France and Mexico. He wasn’t afraid to try it but a little shy about talking to strangers. Then he got a phone call and there was enough dead air to bore me and I signed off.
Conclusion: There are people on Chat Roulette from different countries. There seems to be a fair amount of sexual content, but it’s not ALL sex. It’s hard work to talk by typing to strangers and find something interesting to say. Before I try again I will make a list of questions to ask to engage my strangers” something beyond where are you and have you done this before. Help me out, if you can think of questions I should ask, leave them in the comments.
Also, let me know if you’ve Chat Rouletted and how it went.
I will try again.
Jason Sanders
Tried it for a couple minutes, but took fifteen to work up the courage to actually hit the play button. It’s frightening. The fear reminded me of stage fright, which makes sense as you’re about to go online and be judged by a bunch of random strangers (and judged you are).
The first six people nexted me with a look of annoyance, the seventh just stared at the camera for about 30 seconds after I typed ‘Hello’ so I nexted him. Then I turned it off.
It’s a strange, familiar system. The lack of rules make me think of this as a video version of 4chan and the wild west nature is feels like Internet from the ’90s with web cams. I’m guessing it’s going to grow in popularity as people find out and give it a try.
nadeem
hi can we talk ?