Like many people, I recently became obsessed with a new website you called Chatroulette.com - The idea is simple, there are two videos feeds, one of you on the bottom of the page and one of a random stranger from anywhere in the world at the top, connected via webcam and text chat. It is possible you may be connected to the person of your voyeuristic wildest dreams, but far likelier to find someone or something from your worst nightmares. At any point, either party can hit can hit the “NEXT” button at any point to try again with someone else.

The essence of the site asks each individual user “What do you say or do when momentarily connected to a complete stranger who you will never see again?”. The answers to that question range from the amazing to surprising to obscene and often bizarre. In order to try to understand more about why this idea has captivated so many people (myself included) I decided to attempt to have an actual conversation with 10 people on Chatroulette – something easier said than done.

The rules of this experiment were simple, I was not going to hit “NEXT” at any time (I ended up doing it four times when connected to a minor and one time to a person who was not talking). I would attempt to talk to every person that came up, no matter who they were or what they were doing. For the purposes of this experiment, a conversation needed to go on for at least one minute.

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