In the 1960s, the Internet was created by The Advanced Research Projects Agency for the United States Department of Defense. Originally designed as a way for scientists to share research information, today’s culture has shifted the Internet into a black hole of social deviancy and questionable content.
Further pushing these boundaries is the new sensation Chatroulette. More 4channel than Facebook, Chatroulette is a social networking site that connects visitors to a stranger to share a few words over video or text chat. Words however, are not the only thing shared.

With no sort of content blocker, users are often confronted with a number of questionable images. Anything from full frontal male nudity to cats sleeping can come on screen for a visitor’s eyes to witness.
The creator is a 17-year-old Russian high school student who isn’t even old enough to view most of the content present on his site. Andrey Ternovskiy started the Web site as a way for him and his friends to have fun.
“I was looking for a site like this, one that would let me chat randomly on Web cams, and I couldn’t find it, so I thought I would try to build it,” said Ternovskiy in an interview with the New York Times.
“At first I showed it to my friends and they criticized it; they asked why anyone would want to use it. So I went onto a few Web forums and asked people to try the site.”
After starting with around 20 users, the service has exploded in popularity. In the month of March, the site saw over 30 million unique visitors and around one million new visitors each day.

When a willing participant arrives at the site, he or she is greeted with few options. After approving the use of their Web cam, users are able to search for a partner, report a partner or stop using the service.
Once a partner has been found, both have a choice. Do they stay and chat with this stranger or go looking for another? With interactions lasting only a few seconds, it’s not often that an actual conversation will strike up.
However, Bryce Laughner of Michigan broke the mold and stuck around for an interview.
“I’ve been on the site for about a week now,” said Laughner. “My friend showed it to me, and it seemed like it had endless comedy potential. I get on for a little whenever I’m bored to see what I can find.”
Laughner and many others have seen the obscenity on the site first-hand, but something keeps drawing them back. Not all users of the service are out to shock visitors, some just like to entertain. William Armbruster of Texas is one such individual. When a user is paired with Armbruster, a hand painted with a smile greets them.
“I was tired of seeing all the hate on the service,” Armbruster said. “I wanted to make people at least get some joy out of this thing after being bombarded with male genitals every other person.”
A number of entertainers can be found and often make a trip to the site worthwhile. Even recording artist Ben Folds has been known to go onto the service during a live concert to improvise a song for anyone who is partnered with him.
Media outlets across the world have been up in arms over the potential risk of what this type of online interaction could mean. Comedy Central’s South Park even questioned this form of finding friendship on a recent episode.
Most agree that the sense of anonymity the site creates, causes the disturbing behavior since there is no form of real world harm.
Take out that factor completely, and you have CampusLIVE VideoChat. This service is available through CampusLIVE, a Web site setup for different college campuses to have their own version of an online meetinghouse. Clarion University students recevived an e-mail alerting them to the Clarion CampusLIVE site and its video chat features.
With the knowledge of Chatroulette and its “finer types,” students can connect to the service and chat with fellow classmates they might actually know, however others have to be using it. At the time of writing this article, no Clarion Students could be found using the service.
Video chatting is nothing new, and neither is people showing their privates to strangers. Chatroulette just takes the concept and puts it on a global scale. There is fun to be had on the service if you can stomach some of your findings.