Chatroulette is a phenomenon that is sweeping the web like countless memes before it. There was the dancing banana animated gif that started the whole thing off, and ever since then we’ve all been elbow deep in memes. But chatroulette is different – it represents a true breakdown and symbolic revolution of the relationship between content producers and consumers.

If that sentence didn’t make much sense, and it very well might not have, let me back up a second and try it another way… Memes are shared ideas that can achieve deep cultural penetration through viral sharing. These ideas are cultural units, and they have value.

Chatroulette is one of the newest memes on the web and in the world, and although the technology behind it is nothing new, it has tapped into the spirit of the new web – specifically, the idea that we are all content producers now, and that the barriers have been lowered to a laughable extent in terms of who is able to create content. Chatroullette is a video chat site that randomly connects two guests to each other from anywhere around the world. It is dominated by young single white men and perverts, but deep within the layers of perversion there is something beautiful and wonderful there. It was all explained extremely well by Casey Neistat in this awesome video (that you may have already seen): Continue reading →