I’ve been following ChatRoulette for a while now. But I haven’t been
comfortable talking about it publicly. For one, it’s a hugely
controversial site, one that is prompting yet-another moral panic about
youth engagement online. And I hate having the role of respondent to
public uproar. (I know, I know…) More importantly though, I find it
difficult to respond to the fears because I find it endearing.
ChatRoulette reminds me a lot of the quirkiness of the Internet that I
grew up with. Like when I was a teen trolling through chat rooms,
ChatRoulette is filled with all sorts of weird people. And most users
ignore most other users until they find someone they find interesting
or compelling.
While the site was designed by a teen, minors do not
dominate there (although there are plenty of young adults there). And,
not surprisingly, teens on the site have ZERO interest in talking to
older folks – even old folks like me. It’s the strangest pairing
dynamic… You can click Next and they can click Next until something
gels. And even though I might want to talk to teens on the site, they
have no desire to talk to me. Imagine if I was a sketchy guy. Right: no
interest. Likewise, the people who most want to talk to me – a young
woman – are the people that I don’t want to talk to. So on and on and
on we go clicking next until there’s a possible spark. It’s a game
played by flaneurs walking the digital streets.
What I like most about the site is the fact that there’s only so
much you can hide. This isn’t a place where police officers can pretend
to be teen girls. This isn’t a place where you feel forced to stick
around; you can move on and no one will know the difference. If someone
doesn’t strike your fancy, move on. And on. And on.
I love the way that it mixes things up. For most users of all ages –
but especially teens – the Internet today is about socializing with
people you already know. But I used to love the randomness of the
Internet. I can’t tell you how formative it was for me to grow up
talking to all sorts of random people online. So I feel pretty
depressed every time I watch people flip out about the dangers of
talking to strangers. Strangers helped me become who I was. Strangers
taught me about a different world than what I knew in my small town.
Strangers allowed me to see from a different perspective. Strangers
introduced me to academia, gender theory, Ivy League colleges, the
politics of war, etc. So I hate how we vilify all strangers as
inherently bad.
Did I meet some sketchballs on the Internet when I was
a teen? DEFINITELY. They were weird; I moved on. And it used to be a
lot harder to move on when everything was attached to an email that was
paid for. So I actually think that the ChatRoulette version allows you
to move on with greater ease, less guilt, and far more comfortably.
Ironically – given the recent media coverage – it feels a lot safer
than any site that I’ve seen that’s attached to a name or profile with
connections to people or identifying information.
Can youth get
themselves into trouble here? Sure… like in most public places. And
there are definitely youth who are playing with fire. But, once again,
why go after the technology when the underlying issues should be the
ones we address? Le sigh.
Anyhow, I was hemming and hawing about what to say about this and
I’m still not sure what to say because, truthfully, I like the reminder
of ye-olde-Internet culture. I like the fact that there are still a
small percentage of folks out there looking for some amusement because
they’re bored and they want to connect with randomness, folks who
recognize the joy of meeting strangers in a safer space than most
physical spaces where that’s possible. I realize that this creates the
potential for seeing some pretty gross and/or problematic things and I
certainly don’t want to dismiss that, but I’m pretty certain that teens
are responding the same way that I’m responding – by clicking Next. Is
that ideal? Probably not. And I’d certainly love a filter – not just
for teens but for my own eyes. (Then again, I’d also like a spam filter
too… Especially here on my blog. Cuz really, who of you who are reading
this want to get porn ads here either?) I’m not sure that immature
folks of any age (or the easily grossed out) should be on this site.
But I do hope that we can create a space where teens and young adults
and the rest of us can actually interact with randomness again. There’s
a cost to our social isolation and I fear that we’re going to be paying
it for generations to come.
So I’m still not sure what to say except that I feel this weighted
sense of Le Sigh. The same mix of depression and exhaustion I felt this
morning when I was playing peek-a-boo with a smily child in an airport
and her parents whisked her away, glaring at me as though I was the
devil incarnate. I realize that many parents think that they’re doing
good by their kids when they choose to limit their exposure to the
randomness of the world, but it just makes me deeply deeply sad. And so
I simultaneously am amused by ChatRoulette and depressed because I
realize that so many folks would prefer to keep themselves and their
teens/college-aged-kids sheltered rather than giving them a way of
thinking about systems like this and teaching them to walk away when
things get weird. And this deserves a Le Sigh Royale.
