The new Internet phenomenon Chatroulette, which connects users to characters of all kinds from every corner of the map, has exploded in popularity.The webcam-based chat site randomly pairs two people from anywhere in the world for a conversation and has caused online buzz for the strange happenings there, including appearances by celebrities like Paris Hilton and a user who displays the image of a person who has hanged himself.The concept is simple: Users go to the site and are randomly connected to strangers without having to sign up. Each user’s webcam image is displayed next to a text box for typed conversation, and users can press “next” anytime to be disconnected and paired with a new person.Prentice Evans, political science senior, said she has been using Chatroulette for about a month, and it’s an amusing way to pass the time.Evans said she has chatted with entertaining people, including a person with a cardboard box on his head pretending to be a robot. She has also used the site to improve her French.”I’ve talked to a lot of people from France,” Evans said. “I speak French, and I use them to practice my speaking.”Richard Popp, mass communication assistant professor, said the goal of instantly connecting with distant people was part of early experimentation with technologies like radio, telephones and television.”Before radio was what we would associate with broadcasting, it was hobbyists using it to send out signals and trying to pick up signals from as far off as they could,” Popp said.But as the Internet blossoms, communication experiences online become more multisensory, which Popp said represents the idea of “annihilation of space.””Media is almost a form of mobility,” Popp said. “The effect is that you’ve gone somewhere because you’ve connected with someone so far away. The more convergence, the more it seems like it’s real when you connect with someone.”Evans said she has spoken to Chatroulette users about world events and where they attend school.Zack Dever, computer science and philosophy senior, said he hasn’t visited Chatroulette because he isn’t interested in the site’s “unfiltered” nature.Thomas Davis, international studies senior, said he visited the site and found lots of users “trolling,” a term for doing something unusual to provoke a response — like one girl who was making cow sounds.The Daily Reveille logged on to Chatroulette to interview some of the site’s users.Marcel Elzmann, a 20-year-old Chatoulette user from Bremerhaven, Germany, said he enjoys the site because it is “very international.”Elzmann said he has chatted with users from France, Asia, South America and the United States. He said he has enjoyed talking to some Americans, but they haven’t changed his opinion about the U.S. as a whole.”Usually I don’t think [highly] of the U.S.,” Elzmann said. “There are nice people, but they can’t change my view over the world.”Elzmann said his negative opinion came from American foreign policy.The site itself is international — it was created in November 2009 by 17-year-old Russian student Andrey Ternovskiy and is hosted by servers in Frankfurt, Germany, according to The New York Times. As many as 30,000 users can be online at once, according to Chatroulette’s counter.Ternovskiy created it as a way for him and his friends to chat with new people, but people have interpreted the site in different ways as its popularity grew, he told the Times.”Everyone finds his own way of using the site,” he said. “Some think it is a game. Others think it is a whole unknown world. Others think it is a dating service.”Chatroulette users report there is one unappetizing aspect of the site — the large number of men masturbating on camera.Evans said she thinks it’s gross, but perverted use of the site is inevitable.”If you give people the technology, that’s the first thing they do — it’s this voyeur thing,” she said.People may behave that way because of “surveillance chic” or the willingness to be monitored by others, Popp said.”There’s sort of an exhibitionist side to it — the willingness to basically be watched by random people,” he said.Elizabeth Godsey, a 16-year-old user from Virginia, said she has been paired with many men who were interested in a sexual chat.”Every once in a while, you get the 40-year-old creeps,” she said. “That’s what the ‘next’ is for.”Jennifer Curry, counselor education professor who studies the Internet, said sites like Chatroulette can be dangerous because of potential predators looking for vulnerable people who may not have an active social life.Curry also said Internet fads can absorb people, taking them away from their personal lives.”People who create networks for themselves on the Internet, in general, can become more withdrawn from real life,” she said.–Contact Ryan Buxton at [email protected]