Since last night I’ve been obsessively connecting to Omegle.
It’s a simple site that just connects you to a random person, anonymously, for a conversation.
It feels like that scene in Fight Club where the narrator sits down next to Tyler on the plane. Two strangers meeting, laying out their personality and sizing each other up in just a few words, with no expectations, and — thanks to anonymity — no consequences.
Except in this case, a lot of the time Tyler just screams “COCKS”, punches the narrator, and jumps out of the window.
Still, it’s fun!
xkcd 
Well I did my service to the community and logged in to shout “COCKS” and punch the stranger a few times.
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Reminds me of ChanceChat… we were having some fun with that on Foonetic. Heh.
Rules: we choose 18-yr-old Female, looking to chat with 18-24-yr-old Male.
Nick is typically “sexxygrrl” or a variant thereof. Decisions are made as a channel, mostly, but the chat usually ends with a robe and wizard hat.
I’m an asshole.
(it’s called “the Newport”, after my CAPTCHA)
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That’s brilliant! Ten times better than setting my status to “skypeme”!
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Time to repent: I will say vaguely philosophical things, or tell random people love poems, or possibly just use Dropkick Murphys and Streetlight Manifesto quotes.
reCAPTCHA: Capitol is
I wonder what the rest of that sentence would be?
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One of my favorite tricks was a bot that would hang out on Skype or whatever, with the profile of a hot girl looking to chat. It would wait for two people to message it, and then pass their messages back and forth to each other. You’d be amazed how long the chat would last before they figured out that (typically) they were two guys hitting on each other. Often they didn’t realize until turning on the webcams.
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You are even more my hero than you were previously.
Just… wow.
And thanks again for the cash! ❤
CAPTCHA: MADMAN Senators
yes, yes they are.
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Zomg, Randall Munroe used my site! Awesome. Thanks for the plug. (I feel like my comment should be long, witty, and intellectually stimulating, given the site I’m posting on, but sadly, that’s all I have.)
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I think I got another XKCD blag reader: pics!
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sounds fun, it reminds me of the Candystand multiplayer billiards, except you can say more than Yes, No, Hi, Great shot!, and Hurry up, it’s your turn!, etc
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Randall, I would like a finder’s fee:
Stranger: yo.
You: hey
Stranger: whats up
You: by the way, this site is about to get hammered
You: xkcd linked here
You: I got two of the first four posts in, it was pretty funny
Stranger: what do you mean?
Stranger: hammered?
You: lots of traffic
You: xkcd has millions of fans
Stranger: what is xkcd?
You: a good chunk of them read the blog posts
You: it’s a webcomic
Stranger: ah ok
You: http://www.xkcd.com
You: very big among geeks
You: http://blag.xkcd.com/2009/04/03/omegle/
Stranger: hahaha
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Somewhat reminds me of Monty Python’s argument clinic sketch.
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It’s not fun at all. Whenever I start a conversation that’s more indepth than “Hi, how’re you?” they usually disconnect. That’s drawn me to the conclusion that they’re all a bunch of teenagers.
Though, I suppose opening with Hitler and the positives of socialism probably wasn’t the best tact.
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“Hello are you visting from the xckd blog?”
Tried a large number of times and could not find another xckd blog reader =(
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You’re now chatting with a random stranger. Say hi!
Stranger: the game
You: I don’t play
Stranger: OH SHI-
Your conversational partner has disconnected.
I didn’t even have time to paste http://xkcd.com/391/
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You’re now chatting with a random stranger. Say hi!
You: yo
Stranger: the matrix has found you
You: *sigh*
You: I have embraced the matrix
Stranger: follow the white habbit
You: according to Existentialism, all “authenticity” to life is added by ourselves
You: we can artificially construct meaning in here just as well as in the “real world”
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We need some kind of organized effort to get as many xkcd readers in there as possible. Just to ensure that omegle achieves its maximum weirdness potential.
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Oh wow, I remember that skype plugin/bot which did the message swapping. Hours and hours of fun, quite disturbing too. When we caught someone gullible enough (quite often!) we’d cut one of them off from the other and take up the conversation.
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You’re now chatting with a random stranger. Say hi!
You: hey
Stranger: hellooo
You: It’s true love. Trust me on this.
You have disconnected.
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The typical conversation ever since /b/ invaded Omegle:
Stranger: hai
You: hi
Stranger: i think you lost something
You: what did i lose?
Stranger: THE GAME, MOTHERFUCKER
Your conversational partner has disconnected.
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I’ve been evangelizing, politely. xkcd has between 2 and 5 new readers, so far.
This is fun.
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Even more geeky is the implementation of such a system for XMPP (jabber) in python: http://codingteam.net/project/randomchat
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This is the only part of the internet where it makes sense to ask A/S/L.
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This is so much fun. Also, I’m starting every conversation with “Are you Randall Munroe?”
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Same ts ANiceChat; http://www.anicechat.net/
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Stranger: hi
You: hi
Stranger: say hi and give me a smile
Stranger: 😀
You: 😐
Stranger: o man
Stranger: a nice smile
You: *cockpunch*
Stranger: hey
You: hello guvna
Stranger: ‘ello
You: ELLO GUV’NA
Stranger: how are you this evening
You: blimey! the sting ray! the most dangerous animal of the sea!
Stranger: you’re mixing english with australian
You: *cockpunch*
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Yeah this site is sweet. First stranger I talked to told me that he was my mother, and yelled at me to go to bed.
Awesome.
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Before the site apparently went down, it took me 10 tries to find somebody who didn’t make some obscure sexual reference. The 10th person found the site through a blog called ONTD, which I have never heard of.
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Oh man, I had the idea to build this exact type of service a few months ago. : I convinced myself that people wouldn’t use it in the way I intended, and the comments here about Omegle seem to indicate that I was right.
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Saw this on Tom Francis’s blog.
People have started running Zork on Omegle. It is deeply weird.
You learn things you never wanted to know about people.
On the other hand, just saying … is hours of fun.
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You’re now chatting with a random stranger. Say hi!
You: I’d love to chat, but I’m really busy
You: maybe later, sorry.
Stranger: ok
You have disconnected.
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I propose that all xkcd readers flag who they are, by typing ‘x. Hi’, or other appropriate greeting…
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You’re now chatting with a random stranger. Say hi!
Stranger: Hi, u from?
You: Hi, Europe!
Your conversational partner has disconnected.
I am disturbed by this blatant display of anti-Europeanism. Not that I don’t understand it, though…
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I just had two chats. In the first I pretended to be a bible bashing evangilist who is being forced to use omegle to convert people. It ended with “I must be going, the men with the sticks are after me. Please spread the word. There are many of us. Help obi wan kenobi, your my only hope.”
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I wonder if the Great Hatsby was an experiment to see if these kind of sites would be successful?
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I found it amusing to just burst into Clint Eastwood quotes with the Stranger. Eventually I moved into speaking broken German and I believe they knew what I was saying and knew I wasn’t German. Reminded me of IRC but with less people.
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“You: xkcd Hi
Stranger: Jacob – Is that you?
You: no
You: Its billy
You: the son you abandoned mom
Stranger: THATS IMPOSSIBLE.
Stranger: What an odd occurence for two Billys to run into eachother!
You: I hate you. They use Windows in this family!
Stranger: I’M Billy too!
Stranger: WHAT?
You: I can’t escape the horror
You: the blue screen
Stranger: WHAT HORROR?
You: its burned into my retinas mom!
Stranger: I am not your mother!
Stranger: I AM LOOKING FOR MY SON.
You: Help me! Its going blue! Oh no!
You have disconnected.”
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Daedalus said:
reCAPTCHA: Capitol is
I wonder what the rest of that sentence would be?
… never having to say you’re sorry?
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I’m usually more impressed by xkcd blog comments than this.
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Connecting to server…
Looking for someone you can chat with. Hang on.
You’re now chatting with a random stranger. Say hi!
You: boo
Stranger: what
You: did i scare you?
Stranger: vai se ferrar porra
Stranger: fala portugues cacete
You: no, i’m not really into pokemon
Stranger: pokemon e minha pica
Stranger: pikachu do caraio
Your conversational partner has disconnected.
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I just had two conversations, the first entirely boring, the second, me and the stranger said hi in several languages, including lolspeak and cow, and then he gave me a waffle. It made me happy.
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I’ve been going on and pretending to be a Chatbot, answering in ELIZA-style open-ended questions until people get fed up and leave.
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I just logged on.
The first person I talked to left when (s)he found out that I was a dude.
The second had just logged on after reading this blog post.
We yelled “COCKS” at each other and I learned about a game I had never heard of called Tremulous, then we went our ways.
Great find.
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You: If it is possible to perfectly simulate a universe, or even to imperfectly simulate one in such a way that its residents believe it to be perfect…
You: And if that universe is simulated perfectly enough to allow such a simulation to run within it…
You: Then you have an essentially infinite number of simulated universes, and one true one
You: So statistically speaking, the odds are astronomically against ours being the true reality.
Stranger: i don’t feel like i particularly need reality to get through the day
You: That’s a good outlook.
You: You know, when one of us clicks “disconnect,” it’s almost a certainty that we will never speak to one another again.
You: In a way, doesn’t that make this a deeply significant moment?
You have disconnected.
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Randall, did you crash the Internet again? all I get is a blank page that says “Welcome to nginx!”
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I used chatterbots on the web to have conversations with these people. Jabberwocky gives better answers, but is slow. So I starting using Eliza. Well, I got this one guy who pretended to be Andy from the office. Here’s what Andy and Eliza had to say to each other.
Connecting to server…
Looking for someone you can chat with. Hang on.
You’re now chatting with a random stranger. Say hi!
You: Hello, I am Eliza.
Stranger: hello eliza. I am bernard
You: Do you believe it is normal to be bernard?
Stranger: No, which is why my friends call me Nard-dogg
Stranger: more normal most def.
You: Say, do you have any psychological problems?
Stranger: Well. I am in love with myself
Stranger: And call my friend tuna
You: Do you enjoy being in love with yourself?
Stranger: Yes very much so. well no, I am a hopeless romantic
You: Why do you bring up the topic of friends?
Stranger: Tuna is the MAN
You: Can you elaborate on that?
Stranger: Jim, aka Tuna, has been there for me since day 1, well since he started working at our branch
Stranger: He comforted me when my girlfriend turned out to be a high school student
Stranger: and when my fiance cheated on me with her ex behind my back for months
You: I see.
Stranger: Beer me?
You: Tell me more.
Stranger: I don’t know what more theere is to say
Stranger: oh
You: Don’t you really know what more there is to say?
Stranger: well my a capella group has been with me since …forever
Stranger: did i tell you i went to cornell?
You: oh… you went to cornell?
Stranger: darn tootin’
Stranger: yeeep. THE Cornell
You: What does this suggest to you?
Stranger: i am smart, handsome, likeable, successful.
Stranger: oh i have a black friend
Stranger: his name is stanley
You: Do your friends worry you?
You: Names don’t interest me.
Stranger: Are you kidding? They love the Nard-Dogg
You: Why are you interested in whether or not I am kidding? The Nard-Dogg?
Stranger: root di di di do rit do do dooooooooo
Stranger: LOL UMAD
You: Don’t you ever say Hello?
Stranger: Hello is it me you’re looking for?
You: Does it please you to believe I am looking for you?
Stranger: nope.
You: Why is that?
Stranger: you seem to know the answers you tellm e
You: We were discussing you, not me.
Stranger: you win
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Stranger: hey
You: what up padna
Stranger: nutin you
You: i’m nuttin’ too!
You: feels soooo good
Stranger: not really
Stranger: its pretty boring
You: and….done
Stranger: oh
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You: COCKS!
Stranger: DICKS!
You: PHALLUSES!
Stranger: BONERTASTIC!
You: BONERLICIOUS!
Stranger: i drooled
You: bodily fluiiiiidssss
Stranger: if i had gay sex with you now, would you let our balls touch
You: I don’t have any balls
You: so no
Stranger: SHIT, MOMS GONNA BE PISSED
Your conversational partner has disconnected.
Captcha: Towne jurisdiction
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I started every conversation with: Randall? but I only talked to one person who claimed to be Randall. But he didn’t punch me and run away, so I don’t know. Not really that interesting. A couple people knew what xkcd was, but I didn’t talk to any blag readers apparently.
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@Brad: That’s hilarious, I just got done with a seemingly interminable conversation with some young nettard as ELIZA:DOCTOR… she spent most of the time totally confused, and he spent most of the time misspelling swear words and asking for drugs.
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I was curious to see how many people I needed to talk to before I had a normal conversation. The answer is 6. And the conversation wasn’t entirely normal, but it at least had no obscenities in it. John Gabriel’s Greater Internet Fuckwad Theory has never been more applicable.
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