Paxo on Chatroulette

Thank Jehovah that the Web is still capable of generating the kind of super-retarded moral panic and outrage that characterised Newsnight’s piece on Chatroulette last night.

It was brilliant to be reminded of how subversive and mad the Web is. In our increasingly settled, sanitised and locked down Web era Chatroulette is a timely warning to us all that we must hold on to the crazy stuff, because what it really represents is the Internet’s culture of freedom and culture of innovation.

With the exception of Danah Boyd, the so-called ‘experts’ they brought onto Newsnight last night, and the report itself, were shockingly ill-informed and reminiscent of Chris Morris’ 2001 Brass Eye Special ‘Paedogeddon’. It was like a parody.

Culture correspondent Stephen Smith was sent off to a casino in Knightsbridge to play some roulette to the strains of Frank Sinatra singing “Luck Be A Lady Tonight…“. The show’s producers must have thought this was very clever. But it wasn’t. Stephen linked from the casino to the piece itself, with the question on absolutely nobody’s lips:

“Are we to imagine that the etiquette of the green baize will transfer to the webcam and the new craze ‘Chat Roulette’?”

Uh-oh.

“I span the wheel on Chat Roulette”

Cut to cringe-making clips of Stephen trying to engage with yoof. Stephen is (and looks like) a 40-something old-media professional – but to the young user-base of Chatroulette he must have seemed more like one of Chris Morris’ horde of sexual predators. Cue totally embarrassing attempt to ‘make contact’ with real young people using CR (handled like contact with a strange alien species):

Imagine being seventeen and a bloke like this crashes into your bedroom and says, “Hi guys, what’s happening with you?”. Terrifying.

Stephen didn’t appear to have done very much research and appeared not to know even how to talk about the thing he was reporting on:

“Well, I’ve been “playing” – if that’s the right verb – Chat Roulette for about 15 minutes now, and I’ve been dumped faster than Jordan’s husbands – it really is that quick.”

Arf arf.

Unsurprisingly, Stephen found it difficult to find anyone willing to talk to him, but eventually managed to groom (if that’s the right verb) a seventeen-year-old US user called ‘Perrin’, by telling him the interview would be broadcast (Stephen: “Yes, it is ‘awesome’ – in a way…”). Smith totally missed the point – it’s not about making friends dude – and easy analogies with the casino game ‘roulette‘ proved too irresistible. As anyone who’s played Chatroulette will tell you, it’s more like Russian Roulette than the little wheel.

“Some say you’ve got more chance of beating the house in a casino than finding a friend on Chat Roulette”

Enter mad expert, psychologist Judi James, with the disturbing news that Chat Roulette is damaging…

Err, right – and presumably that extends to talking shit too?

There then ensued a studio debate where Danah Boyd was unable to get her points across – let’s face it, the pitch had been thoroughly queered by then and it’s arguable that a real debate was by this stage now impossible. Jeremy had started to become Chris Morris. His introductory question to yet another ‘expert’ Dr Aric Sigman was:

“Aric, why would you go nude? There are people masturbating and all sorts of things.“

Holy God! Not masturbating!

Anyone genuinely interested in trying to understand Chatroulette should read Danah Boyd’s recent post at Apophenia, but if you get the chance you should also watch the programme on iPlayer and compare it with Brass Eye (below). Being described as “a craze” by a programme like Newsnight almost certainly means it’s over – although I really hope not, because it’s the best thing that I’ve seen for ages. We need more batshit, out-of-control scary stuff… it may be the best way to save “our Internet” and to halt The Enclosures.