Yesterday we were talking about CHATROULETTE.com … it’s this new video web chat site that randomly pairs you with someone else in the world. It’s virtually a social roulette game. When I tell you that this is THE MOST FUN WAY TO SPEND A FEW HOURS ONLINE, you either need to trust me, or try it for yourself!!! You can see them, they see you, and you IM back and forth. I even read that a 17 year old came up with the idea. Whoever did, is a freakin GENIUS.
Once you get past the dudes who are holding signs that simply say “boobs” and the guys who are doing totally inappropriate things … the site is a BLAST. Last night I chatted with people from Russia, Brazil, Kentucky, Texas and even a group of college students as close as Penn State! Not EVERYONE on there is a creep. Warning to the parents – your kids should DEFINITELY NOT be checking this site out. One minute i’m watching American Idol flipping through random chats and the next I look down and it’s 2:22 AM!!! The time flew because I was just being a social butterfly … with complete strangers. It’s a strange feeling actually. The guy from Brazil was sitting there with a guitar. He told me to pick a song. He didn’t know any John Mayer, so we played me some PEARL JAM and even SANG for me too! A complete stranger, sharing his talent with me, a random girl sitting on video chat. I was about to log off and then clicked NEXT one more time. That was my mistake. I was connected with a super cute guy named Chris in San Diego. We chatted for a LONG freaking time. . . purely for research 
haha … the thing about this site is that there is NO POSSIBLE WAY to reconnect with someone once you close out your chat with them. There’s no login, username, nothing. I guess the appropriate thing to do if you want to stay in contact with someone would be to give them your facebook or email. Chris gave me his so we could continue our chat another time, but something tells me he had a secret wife and kids upstairs sleeping in his beautiful California home.
The site says you have to be atleast 16 to use it, but there’s no way of stopping younger kids yet. Just an FYI – this is definitely not the kind of thing your kids exploring. There was WAY MORE gross people than normal people . . . but chat roulette is just now getting all of this attention in the media, so hopefully they can weed through the creeps and filter out all of the nasty users.
If you google Chat Roulette you can seen some examples of some of the more interesting screen shots people have taken . . .
If you find yourself looking to chat with new people and have some serious hours to blow, try it out! It’s a LOT of fun, but you definitely have to be ready to see some questionable things and just NEXT them!
