• The New Yorker, Monday, May 10, 2010 3 PM

The New Yorker devotes over 4,000 words to Web sensation Chatroulette -- a video chat forum that randomly connects users with strangers -- and its young Russian founder Andrey Ternovskiy. The magazine chronicles a broad spectrum of potential encounters from "copulating couples, masturbators, a man who has hanged himself (it's fake)," to "the video of the dancing banana, crudely drawn on lined paper, exhorting people to 'Dance or gtfo!' (Dance or get the fuck out.)"

The New Yorker notes: "Hundreds of articles and blog posts have asked whether Chatroulette is a fad or a good investment, and if it will change Internet culture forever" -- questions it doesn't attempt to answer directly. Rather, the profile asserts that Ternovskiy has "bucked a decade-long trend that has made the Internet feel progressively more organized, pleasant, and safe." Indeed, in addition to -- if not in place of -- evermore refined search algorithms and user controls, "Chatroulette has come along and showed us that we want chaos, too."

Read the whole story at The New Yorker »