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Comment by MilnerRoute | Hacker News Reader

Singer Ben Folds once did this during a huge concert. So random people looking for a video chat would suddenly see a man on a stage in front of a huge audience...singing a song about them. ("Hello Mr. Shirtless Man. How are you doin' today? Is it hot in there...?")

https://www.pigdog.org/auto/viva_la_musica/link/3203.html

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I remember quite a while back, Chat Roulette song improv was a big thing. It was the guy in the hoodie - PianoChatImprov on Youtube. I just looked it up and, wow, that was 10 years ago.

This was also before Chat Roulette became nothing but dongs.

I'm kinda surprised there was a "before" in that situation. I presumed that was what was going tonhappen from the get-go.

Perhaps I am too cynical.

You'd think with the state of machine learning these days someone could have another go at it, and ban users who show their dongs

Not Hotdog

Or for those that want it, have a dong on / dong off preference.

Sadly, no. At the beginning it was mostly random people. Unfortunately, you need very little to ruin things - most normal people will not play even with a 10% chance of getting a dong, and the more “normies” leave, the higher that chance gets, in a vicious circle.

In these confusing times I sometimes tend to forget that being a normie is a good thing.

That's not the definition of 'normie' I'm familiar with. In fact, I'd expect normies to be the ones showing dongs.

Normie means unremarkable middle-of-the-road as far as I know.

Showing dongs in anonymous video chats is not what I'd expect from a normie.

Maybe it just normalized to be only "normies", and normal people just happen to really like dongs, even if unspoken?

Perhaps, but probably not. How many people use chat roulette today?

The wants of the recipients aren't represented in the marketplace of dickpics.

I was on Chat Roulette very early.. and maybe my memory is bad (I'm getting old) but I remember it being dongs pretty much from day one.

The dynamics here reminds me of https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/ZQG9cwKbct2LtmL3p/evaporativ...

That's an interesting blog post.

As an aside, I've noticed exactly what the author mentions in it happening in hacker news recently - there is a shift in politics to less tolerance. I've reduced my own viewing because of it.

I suppose it will just re-enforce that lack of tolerance.

the question is, would it be possible to implement something like that in a way where dong shows don't take over? What is it exactly that turned chat roulette into that?

> What is it exactly that turned chat roulette into that?

Being on the internet?

* would it be possible to implement something like that in a way where dong shows don't take over? *

Having an option to mark yourself as NSFW, and to decide if you want to see NSFW cams would go a long way.

IIRC they had this and only guys used it (because only guys were naked on chatroulette to begin with) so nobody used it.

Yea, discord can detect dicks. I'm guessing that the hotdog/no hotdog algorithm is advanced enough by now.

Really? I've never been in a group where one is sent, does it block it or just mark it as NSFW?

There might be a setting for the room, I've seen it marked as explicit content prevented from uploading and it doesn't show the picture.

I still play piano on omegle occasionally. Dudes will cancel the chat immediately.

One time I got a girl who was just talking about her shitty relationship with the chat on mute. I had to skip her myself.

First and foremost, upon returning to this thread after a few hours, I’m stoked how many people I got to say the word “dong”. Anyway.

Nowadays it would probably be easier than ever to detect certain shapes? I don’t know, we have artificial intelligence that can detect all sorts of things, male genitalia probably that hard to detect.

They could have Snapchat-like filters that turn it into something innocent

Perhaps some sort food detection software that returns "Hotdog" or "Not Hotdog" could be repurposed for this.

The concert(s) in question: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vhJyX08GecU

In this vein, Steve Kardynal did a chat roulette performance of Miley Cyrus’s “Wrecking Ball.”

The editing is very good: https://youtu.be/W6DmHGYy_xk

I feel that this is a violation of trust. A lot of users are there to talk to another person, they're not necessarily ready or willing to be shirtless in front of tens of thousands of people. If I was on a jury and there was a lawsuit, I would award damages.

This is why we can't have nice things :(

Isn't showing up shirtless to a video chat with a stranger a huge violation of trust in itself? I'd be much more inclined to consider "shirtlessness" (to give this phenomenon a short name) to be a sign of aggression, rather than of innocence and of trust in others.

They're clearly OK with exposing themselves to strangers because that's the reason they're doing it. How does the number of strangers matter? If they were shy, they could have put their shirt on before going out in public.

What would the lawsuit be for?

The other stranger did not consent to being situation where the rando was shirtless, though.

Them being shirtless without telling the other person in advance, is harm that theyd be causing in the first place.

Consent was given implicitly by browsing chatroulette. Or so is the mainstream rhetoric used for third party cookies "consent".

By that logic, consent was given to be shown on a projector at a concert by showing yourself on Chatroulette.

So if you flash me on the subway and I take a photo of it to share... I am violating your trust?!

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