ChatRoulette is a somewhat controversial social media site. It has made headlines across the world since its launch and has gained a huge user base. The platform is a basic instant messaging plus video service and allows anyone to randomly find a user by simply clicking a ‘next’ button.
The reason it has been termed ChatRoulette becomes quite evident when using the service – you never know who or what will appear on your screen.
I’ve tried ChatRoulette a few times in the past few months and have learned to keep the cursor on the ‘next’ button, since it is vital to hit that button as fast as you can, especially since some people misuse the service to show-off some pretty profane graphic behaviour. Unfortunately the success rate of finding someone interesting to chat to is pretty low – so I gave up…
Then I stumbled across a very interesting and funny viral video on YouTube. A freestyle piano player / singer known as Merton recorded his encounters whilst improvising lyrics that directly related to the people he was watching / chatting to.
Your host, Merton, freestyling in real-time with random strangers on Chat Roulette.
Now if you’ve ever tried this service you’ll know that if someone odd looking is on the screen you automatically hit ‘next’ to try find someone semi-sane looking. But Merton engages with his chat partner immediately and grabs their attention by singing about them. They are intrigued and listen and interact…some of their reactions are priceless.
Merton even performed his ChatRoulette stunt with a live audience – and it is just too funny how some random guy sitting who-knows-where in the world is surprised and baffled by some stranger and a 2000 head audience singing to him, sheer brilliance! And some faceless man named Bobby had 2000 people chanting his name – before he revealed himself!
I think this is brilliant because Merton not only had a clever concept in mind about how to interact with this completely abstract and random online crowd, but also creating a set of unique and funny viral videos at the same time!
