Rush and Roulette

Action. Scene one: you see a group of young men crammed on a small sofa laughing and sipping from red Solo cups. Scene two: you see a man wearing a sparkling Mardi Gras mask and a black overcoat dancing wildly around a cramped bedroom. Scene three: you see a teenage girl in a dimly lit living room holding a paper sign with “Help Haiti” scrawled across it in black Sharpie. Scene four: you see a middle-aged man lounging on a bed, quietly puffing on a cigarette with one hand and scratching at his five-o-clock shadow with the other.
Cut. Print. That’s a rap.
Or should I say, log off and shut down the computer. I say that because each of those scenes was only about four seconds long. I say that because each of the "actors” in those scenes cut off their scenes on their own. I say that because you’re not watching some odd, avant-garde documentary. You’re watching your computer screen as you cycle through the new internet phenomenon that is ChatRoulette.
ChatRoulette.com is a website that launched in November of 2009, and it is a platform for completely random, no-holds-barred video chatting with anyone who has access to the internet and a webcam from anywhere in the world.
The premise of the site is pretty simple. You don’t need a membership, a login name, or an email address. You just travel to the site, and, once you click “start”, you are immediately connected with a partner via video or text chat. If, for whatever reason, you don’t feel like chatting with that person, you simply click the “next” button at the top of your screen and you are immediately zapped away and paired up with another chatting chum. It’s that easy.
Of course, you never know who you could be paired with. From dancing Mardi Gras men to Haiti relief supporters, anyone and everyone with a webcam can pop up on a little corner of your computer screen to chat with you, insult you, or simply click next before you can even get a word said or typed. You can talk with a college student from England and a dentist from Switzerland all in the space of about 30 seconds, and they can be doing anything besides chatting on their side of the plastic and pixels.
And I mean anything.
Emily Thatcher, a freshman at the University of Oklahoma, said she has been bothered and harassed when she has visited ChatRoulette.
"I get asked all the time to take my shirt off and other stupid stuff. All I ever see on that place is creepy guys. I've been on there about three times, and it's always the same. I don't know why everyone likes it so much," Thatcher said.
ChatRoulette has almost no rules as to what can be shown on their site. They do have a disclaimer that the site is not for use by anyone under the age of 16, and they have a link on the site to report offensive content. But by the time a computer mouse can dart to that link to report such content, you may have already seen people exposing themselves to the camera, making obscene gestures, or performing highly risqué acts with inanimate objects.
But the good news is, you can play director anytime you want by simply clicking next on a scene and searching for anyone or anything that suits your fancy.
Beret and knickers optional.
Many other students at the University of Oklahoma have engaged in a ChatRoulette session or two, and it appears they have mixed feelings about the site's quality and results. John Miller, a freshman at the university, says he's ventured on to the site before, with less than favorable results.
"All I ever see on there is people being jerks or people getting naked," Miller said. "There's no substance on it (ChatRoulette). Once in a while I'll actually talk to somebody, but usually I just get nexted by people who are sitting in a dark room staring at their computer screen looking bored. It makes no sense to me."
OU sophomore Alex Walton completely disagrees. He says he loves the site, despite its faults. You just have to roll with the digital punches, according to him.
"I talk to people all the time on there (ChatRoulette)," Walton said. "I'll get bored or something after I'm done with my homework and just click on there. It's fun to talk to people and see where they're from. (It) seems like there's mostly college students on there, but not always. It's fun to connect with them."
There is no doubt that ChatRoulette has swept the OU campus, and the rest of the world, in a storm of shock and awe combined with social networking. From Facebook to ChatRoulette, the internet is constantly expanding in the area of interaction and connectivity, with the consumer in the glare of the lights and the focus of the camera. The next sequel is sure to be interesting. But if it has anything more to do with Mardi Gras masks and flapping overcoats, I might just have to catch it on DVD instead.