Have you discovered the depraved genius that is Chatroulette? Of course you have… 

Created by Andrey Ternovskiy, a 17 year-old high school student in Moscow the site works on a really simple premise:

Visit www.chatroulette.com and every click lands you in a face-to-face video conversation with a random stranger.

Activate your webcam and click “play.” Then, as people from all over the world pop up one at a time in a box on your screen, you decide whether or not to chat with them. If you don’t like the looks of things, click “next” and the site shuffles you to someone new.

Needless to say that the concept has been somewhat hijacked by the brethren of pervs who use the site as somewhere to truly reveal all… yes, a sizeable proportion of visitors to Chatroulette tend to use it as a visual forum for heavy breathing.

14% to be exact. That’s according to Casey Niestat (how do you pronounce that?) who has taken the time to create a really good mini-film about the world of Chatroulette.

chat roulette from Casey Neistat on Vimeo.

The Neistat Brothers (Casey and Van) have a show coming out on HBO. The show is sort of like these movies which are some of the shorts made by the duo over the last 6 years or so.

Casey was born in 1981, Van in 1975. They grew up in Gales Ferry Connecticut and went to Ledyard High school. In 1999 the imac DV came out. This was the first computer that allowed consumers to edit video. Casey and Van both got a video camera and imac and figured out how to make movies. Neither of the brothers went to film school or anything like that. They both live in NYC.

So there you have it – all condensed in a ball of Vimeo goodness…

Times journalist Sathnam Sanghera recently summed up his experience of Chatroulette as thus:

“I found chatroulette creepy and depressing, like being trapped on the Tube with a bunch of exhibitionist nonentities“

Fair enough. But Daniel Frisbee, a commentator on the same article disagrees with this somewhat despondent view:

“I completely disagree. Internet social networking is inherently dull because you become an empty prompted blip for targeted marketing whilst failing to progress any kind of meaningful discourse with friends or otherwise.

On my first go at chatroulette I was transfixed and spent 7 hours on it. I met some fascinating people and felt awash with humanity. There is a skill to it, you need to learn how to come across and connect with your stranger, but the rewards are huge. It is just the answer in these days of blandness that we reconnect with each other. We’ve had organic food, grass routes politics (or the promise of), and now a revolution of the internet. I have found it profound and ask that you try yourself and not take if from anyone else whether communicating with strangers is to be disregarded. I am born again. (and I do have real friends in real life)(I promise)”

For anyone who has ever bought a bag of Revels chocolates and played a game of Russian Roulette, think of Chatroulette as being the same thing. Except the packet would contain mainly coffee and orange flavoured Revels with the occasional Caramel Toffee to make the whole experience worthwhile.

Any comments?