The site, built by a 17-year-old in Moscow in November 2009, that connected you by webcam to a random stranger and let either of you press 'next' — which for about four months in 2010 was the most talked-about thing on the internet, until everyone worked out what roughly one in eight strangers was doing. The record notes it gave English the verb 'to next someone', and that Omegle did the same job with less press.
The definition implies everyone used Chatroulette the same way. They did not. There were at least two camps by the second month, and they did not like each other.
The record notes that 'Chatroulette' peaked at 1.5 million users a day in March 2010, that it was on the cover of New York magazine, and that the phrase 'the piano guy' refers to Merton, who improvised songs about strangers on it and was the site's one unambiguous good.
Live specimen. A brand account used Chatroulette in a reply to a customer complaint. The complaint was about a delivery. The customer did not reply.
What does it mean? Write it the way you would say it out loud.
