Next!
July 2nd, 2010Let me tell you about my latest discovery: www.chatroulette.com
Yes, I know I’m late. Chatroullette was launched in November 2009 and covered by numerous media in early spring 2010. Still, many people don’t know about it. I haven’t either. This is exactly what I like about being back at the universtiy – I get to leave my closed world of same age/occupation/status/interests and learn about some other stuff. The newest hype!
What makes Chatroullette so interesting is that it is more than application – it is a fantastic social (and media) experiment. It is a mirror for the mankind to look at and see what we must see, not what we’d like to see. I like Chatroulette because it proves my thesis that if you leave people anonymous, without any rules and control (and yes – without a punishment), they turn into a bunch of ruthless, sex-obsessed mob. They will shove their dick into your face and click you away without a pardon the second you don’t fulfill their present needs.
The application has been created by a 17years old Russian programmer. Just for the fun of it. As the user number started growing, his family collected money for the unexpected expansion – the kid needed some more severs. Have we found a new Zuckerberg here? Is yet to be seen.
But let’s get back to Chatroulette. It is a very simple application which puts random people together for a video-chat. No need to log in, no need register – so it’s simple and completely anonymous. The only thing you need is a computer and a webcam. Go to www.chatroulette.com and you’ll see yourself in one window, your random chat partner in the window above, a text-chat window and two buttons: NEXT and STOP (I didn’t get the point of the STOP button yet, maybe you can figure it out).
You get to meet random people from all around the world. You can chose from up to 22,000 people online. They are just a click away. And gone in just one click as well.
And here the Chatroulette phenomenon:
1. You’re completely anonymous so you can do whatever you want
2. The moment you don’t like the person you just click NEXT. This needs no explanation, no excuse. People do it anytime, even in the middle of a sentence or a chat. The moment there is anything they don’t like you’re gone. Or the moment you don’t do what they want you to do (masturbate). A very painful experience for people with low self-esteem.
3. It is all about masturbating men. 80% of people you find are… dicks.
4. People stick something over their cam so it does’t show their picture. Here’s the trick: When you do this, 90% of people think that if they can’t see anyone, no one is watching. How stupid is that? So they style their hair and check their teeth in the camera, or just go on masturbating.
Apart from getting an overdose of masturbating dicks (hey, why do only ugly little dicks masturbate online?), I had following experiences:
A Turkish guy with no teeth sitting in an internet cafe.
Many men from places like Las Vegas, London and Lisbon. They all clicked me away the moment they saw my whole (tired and unmade-up) face or the moment Marcus came into the picture. (although they were not masturbating, they were obviously looking for sex).
A woman who was interested in sex with me (sex).
A couple getting it on full picture in front of the camera. Few minutes after I found them, they got interrupted by someone who I would swear was his wife (or mother) – suddenly they jumped up and started dressing and just as I was wondering what kinky new sexual practice that was, a screaming woman entered the picture. I witnessed another 3 minutes of the fight, then someone finally thought of switching the camera off (sex).
Advertisement for sex chat (sex).
My neighbor Marcus claims he had a very nice 20 minutes long chat with a guy from Amsterdam. I don’t know if I want to believe that.
Yes, Chatroulette is wild, horny west of internet. A zoo of dicks AND men looking for sex. Pity. Because the idea of finding random people from all around the world for a short chat is actually very cool. But the reality is not. Still, Chatroulette is a fantastic social experiment. Also, you can use it as a platform for your ownn experiments – to test when, how and why people react the way they react. I decided to put on full hair and make up next time, just to see the difference in the reaction (and NEXT rates). I also want to see how the men react if you play they game and immediately ask them for sex.
Someone proposed to define chatroom topics. Dickroulette for whoever wants to share the masturbating experience. And then Footballroulette, Partyroulette, whatever…
But you see, we need rules to make it work.
Otherwise we’re simply stuck masturbating.
Next.
G8 – The Fiasco of Change
June 26th, 2010G8 summit has finished today. Conclusion: the financial transaction tax as proposed by the EU has been rejected. Also, we should restraint the public spending and reduce our budgets. In plain English: While rich continues being freed of paying taxes tax while getting richer, we get to save on schools, pensions, medical care, infrastructure, and other.
Great. Have we learned nothing from the financial crisis? Bravo, politicians. (Why don’t we just get rid of them?)
Please note that the news about the rejection of the transaction taxis is quite hard to find. G8 concluding that they are angry of Iran and N. Korea is so much more important.
P.S. What about the change Obama was promising? Anybody seen it?
Important
June 20th, 2010“Important to become less interesting. To talk less, repeat more, save thinking for writing.”
Susan Sontag
Susan & Charles
June 16th, 2010I have just finished reading Susan Sonntag’s Reborn (Journals & Notebooks 1947-1963) and Charles Bukowski’s Women. And I’ve never enjoyed a cocktail of books as much. Both completely different, both equally fantastic and both perfectly complementing each other.
Sontag is a must read for any young (female) intellectual. The book shows a woman who chooses to become an intellectual and who works on this project with incredible self-discipline and austerity. She is rational, she is constructing, she is determined. She is analyzing. She is a brain, wishing to be more of a heart/soul. She is voluntarily locked inside of her elitist world of US and European intellectuals. And very confused about her homosexuality and continuously intellectualizing sexuality. What touched me personally was seeing that all of us who write go through same fights and conversations with ourselves. It is a never-ending feeling of guilt, of not working enough, of not being disciplined enough, of not being good enough:
“From now on I’m going to write every bloody thing that comes into my head.
A kind of foolish pride which comes from dieting on high culture for too long.
I have diarrhea of the mouth and constipation of the type-writer.
I don’t care if it’s lousy. The only way to learn how to write is to write.
The excuse that what one is contemplating isn’t good enough.”
Bukowski on the other hand is ….. Bukowski. The opposite of Sontag. Locked in his own world of alcohol, drugs, sex and his own writing. Avoiding intellectuals and despising anything to do with them. She is a brain looking for her soul and he is a dick looking for his. While she is trying to grab the world around her and understand it and construct it, he is locking himself away from the world around him, trying not to understand but to feel it and destruct it. Unfortunately only sexually.
When I started reading Sonntag, I found it too boring so I put her away. Few weeks later I started reading Bukowski which I also found a bit… uninteresting. But then I discovered the mix: I literally mixed the two books while I was reading them, jumping from one to the other. They started speaking to each other, each picking a different part of my brain.
And this was exciting!
So now I ‘m wondering how to turn into a book-tender and always know which books to mix for the maximum effect….
Yes, that’s me…..
June 11th, 2010Thank you to Oliver (who knows me so well) for the cartoon. For more, go to: www.geekculture.com
My Last 1 on S&C (I promise!)
June 7th, 2010Hmmmm, I did it other way round and it miraculously worked: First I wrote my commentary on “Sex & the City 2” for 3 newspapers/magazines and 2 platforms – and then I went to see the movie. Last night. Ugh….
Although I was prepared for disappointment, it was much (much, much) worse then expected. I don’t have to say much (I already wrote my statements, and they perfectly fit) because everyone else is saying it. The most hurting part is that the movie is turned into one big advertisement. The second most hurting part is that the series, which we loved for its realism (with a touch of magic) has turned into pure magic with no touch of realism whatsoever. The third most hurting thing is that the main characters haven’t gone though any character development or transformation (in 12 years). And we all know that the major point of any dramaturgical development is the main character’s development. None here. Charlotte is crying because she has two kids and when nanny is away, she gets a nervous break down. Taking care of your own two children is so enormously hard (even though you’re not working and have loads of money) that you even accept a porn-star nanny as long as she takes away the horrible burden of your own (2) kids from you. Samantha is 50-something and still fucking around. Miranda doesn’t like her job but likes working so she gets a new job. And Carrie…. If you didn’t hate Carrie during the series (I didn’t), you must start hating her now. Because now, all bad parts of her character come out. She’s self-obsessed, materialistic, egoistic and completely insensible of the needs and feelings of people around her. She repeats the most stupid mistake she made in the series – and this time, she even gets awarded for it! It was hard not to puke during the opening shopping scene. It was VERY hard not to puke during the karaoke scene. But IMPOSSIBLE during this one.
I really, really hope they don’t plan another film.
I’m sure all fans will pray together with me: “Sex and the City” – RIP!
Tajder in EMMA
May 28th, 2010I am happy to announce that my commentary about “Sex and the City 2″ is going to be published in the next issue of EMMA, the most renown feministic magazine in German speaking countries.
As announced on the Website:
“Alice Schwarzer hat für die nächste EMMA einen Kommentar zur Sache von Ana Tajder in Wien bestellt – und das Resultat begeistert uns EMMAs alle sehr.”
Hookers-Time
July 4th, 2010What happened? Are we all hookers now?
Last night, I went to the traditional summer party organized by Vienna’s snobbiest bar. I used to be a regular guest in that bar – Back then, when I was still a snob. And when I was still partying.
I know I sound like my grandma, but: Things were different back then.
I don’t know if that is the new fashion, if there are more prostitutes in Vienna or have women all turned into hookers? The bar to which we used to go to wearing LBDs (for the male readers: Little Black Dress) was now filled with porn stars and hookers. The dresses were tight, (too) short and see-through, the heels were all above 15cm. My (male friend) told me: “Look at them. The moment you show them your brumm-brumm (no clue why he’s speaking baby language. Maybe too much skin melted his brain) you don’t need to put in any effort anymore. And if they see the house (he has a gorgeous villa in Vienna hills) they’re done. Yours on the spot.”
Hmm. Either the times were different back then, or we were different back then. Or we were simply naïve. That’s also a possibility.
And then he went on: “Look at that blonde in the red dress at the bar. Polish call girl (I don’t know why he knows. Maybe if you have a villa and a brumm-brumm you also have an overview of the hottest call girls in town). Turn around and look at that sexy Czech group behind you. For sale.”
I don’t know. I have a feeling that prostitution is on the rise. Not necessarily the “official” prostitution but the unofficial kind. Wearing a skinny dress to be able to “give” yourself to the ones with more expensive brumm-brumms. It is the greed. It is the hunger for luxury. It is the “money as religion” thing. It is “get as much as you can while you can”. It is the whole new value system. Has it turned us into hookers?
Tags: Commentary, Consumerism, Feminism, System
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