OMGWTF: Chatroulette

Abstract:

In the few months it’s been online, Chatroulette has become the latest internet “craze,” capturing the attention of the major media while confusing and amusing anyone brave enough to try it. Is this what the kids really want? WTF is this thing from a communications perspective? For that matter, WTF is this thing from any perspective?

We’ll sift through anecdotes, video, and screenshots in attempt to plumb some of the more entertaining uses of this weird, wild, and sometimes extremely boring use of the Internet. Beyond the nonplussed college kids and chronic masturbators there is a tiny cadre of pranksters, spacemen, insult hurling monsters, and Jonas Brothers. I’ve endured the worst so you don’t have to, but it’s still not safe for work.

Bio:

Dean Hudson is an artist, musician,and technologist from the Seattle area. For the past 7 years, he’s worked as the the Director of Technology and as a member of the A&R staff at Sub Pop Records, having worked digital campaigns for The Shins, Iron and Wine, Fleet Foxes, David Cross, Wolf Parade, and many, many more. Prior to Sub Pop he spent many years in the trenches of the Internet as a software engineer and Unix systems engineer for a Tier I ISP.

He’s shown visual art and film at the Bellevue Art Museum and Crawlspace Gallery, and spends his free time touring and releasing decidedly analog 7-inch records with Seattle’s favorite pizza-party-rock outfit, the Coconut Coolouts.

Dean is a student in the University of Washington’s MCDM program.

Last but not least, he is a fan of pranks, Temporary Autonomous Zones, weirdos, the misappropriation of technology, and the open Internet.