Bryan and I recently came into contact with a french designer named Denis Carrier (see his work at studiofolk.com). We fell in love with his clean style and emphasis on a simple, central idea. One of my favorite pieces of Denis’ is his commentary on the popular site Chatroulette. Enter at your own peril.
In short, Chatroulette is a site where two people with webcams are randomly paired together to have a conversation on the internet. The site was created by 17 year old Andrey Ternovskiy and stemmed from his desire to meet a different crowd of people online than his usual webcam friends.
Chatroulette was instantly popular and as it has scaled out, so have the characters parading around it. It’s hard to explain, but I think Jon Stewart does a great job in a satirical piece on his show. It really hits at many of the nuances of the site and questions its importance in spite of its massive “success” as a highly trafficked website (though it is barely profitable as well).
In spite of all the perverse pranksters and… well… perverts on the site, there are some great contributors that makes it worth checking out. One such case is “Merton,” a talented improvisational pianist who creates a new song and makes up lyrics with each new chat, usually related to his victim on the other side of the camera. This Merton character resembles musician Ben Folds very closely and some even say he is Ben Folds. To pay his respects, Ben Folds played a little game of Chatroulette live in front of his audience.
Needless to say, Chatroulette is a very interesting playground for those daring and creative enough to brighten their day with a little adventure. I think Bryan and I will come up with a Chatroulette contest for AntiClothes. Stay posted for this!
Thanks again to Denis Carrier for sharing with us his work. Check out his portfolio here and his design firm here. Hopefully we can print a shirt or two showcasing his talent!