This week I tried out the most creepy/epic internet phenomenon I have ever seen. Chatroulette is a website where you videochat with a random stranger. The pace of the sight is rapid, as you can skip through “the untouchable candidates.” Most of the time there are about upwards of 4000 people on Chatroulette at a time. These numbers are mostly comprised of guys looking to see girls that are willing to show their bodies to strangers over the internet, these slutty girls, and guys jerking off on screen. The desperate guys are perhaps the most prevalent but the dicks are almost just as common (and much more frightening). Over the course of using this service for nearly an hour with some of the people on my floor we saw about 70 people masturbating, 150 guys asking to see my friend’s boobs, 20 girls alone looking for a cheap thrill, and one group of Canadians that seemed to be mirroring our experience. One man we met was putting on a hand puppet show (literally, not a double entendre) and told us “he was just tired of seeing dicks and wanted to entertain people.” Another guy raised up a sign that said “tits for Haiti.” Charming, really. The site is pretty funny to use and there’s a thrill in talking to someone that you don’t know at all and will never see again. Everyone is labeled as “stranger.” There are no handles/screen names so any post-Chatroulette contact is only left up for you two to decide if you want to happen. I can’t see anyone make any lifelong friendships over chatroulette but stranger connections have been made on the internet.

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