Blurry People, a safer, more comfortable, and less superficial take on social chat

August 23, 2010 4:28 PM

Blurry People is perhaps best summarized as a combination of ChatRoulette and a dating site. On Blurry People, you engage in random video chats with people like you would in ChatRoulette. The significant difference here is that both video portraits start out blurred and sharpen over time as - or if - your conversation goes on.

To increase the likelihood of a good match the next time, you are able to rate your chat partner with tags like "too grumpy", "too ugly", and "too dumb". This way, the worst people are filtered away, and the mechanisms to game are gone, leaving you to form relationships with other people under less superficial circumstances.

Or as the guys behind Blurry People say it: strangers you might actually like.

posted by blook (42 comments total)

Weird.
posted by delmoi at 4:30 PM on August 23, 2010

Does it only work with PC? I couldn't get it to work with my mac.
posted by cell divide at 4:31 PM on August 23, 2010

The significant difference here is that both video portraits start out blurred and sharpen over time as - or if - your conversation goes on.

More fakery. What about guys who want to met genuinely blurry chicks?
posted by jonmc at 4:36 PM on August 23, 2010 [21 favorites]

People who are "too ugly" are filtered out so the remaining people can form relationships under less "superficial" circumstances?
posted by Thoughtcrime at 4:41 PM on August 23, 2010 [8 favorites]

So it's like ChatRoulette, but guys will have to wait two and half minutes to yell "Surprise!" and whip it out?
posted by RobotVoodooPower at 4:42 PM on August 23, 2010 [14 favorites]

I prefer the real-world version where we start out sharp and get progressively blurrier over time (Drunk People).
posted by naju at 4:44 PM on August 23, 2010 [34 favorites]

If they add a 'lunge' feature and make the image wobble as well as be blurred they could market it as a virtual weekend night out in Blackpool. Maybe even the chance to heave alcopops into a virtual gutter as a way to impress your intended.
posted by Abiezer at 4:44 PM on August 23, 2010 [2 favorites]

I met my Sasquatch through this site. We're very much in love.
posted by horsewithnoname at 4:47 PM on August 23, 2010 [4 favorites]

Nice!!
posted by TwelveTwo at 4:50 PM on August 23, 2010

@cell divide: It uses Flash. Maybe you have some blocking going on? I'm a Windows user, though, and the Hacker News people don't report similar problems: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1626783.
posted by blook at 5:00 PM on August 23, 2010

Linkfix: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1626783.
posted by blook at 5:01 PM on August 23, 2010

I met a lovely sentient fog on this site, but there was some initial confusion.
posted by benzenedream at 5:05 PM on August 23, 2010 [16 favorites]

So it's like downloading an interlaced porn gif over a modem?
posted by cjorgensen at 5:12 PM on August 23, 2010 [5 favorites]

So it's like ChatRoulette, but guys will have to wait two and half minutes to yell "Surprise!" and whip it out?

I'm pretty sure those guys are looking for other guys.
posted by dunkadunc at 5:25 PM on August 23, 2010

can we just name it "blurry penis" and call it a day?
posted by HuronBob at 5:29 PM on August 23, 2010 [1 favorite]

I explained this briefly to my wife, who looked at me for a long moment, then said "I'm so glad we don't have to deal with that shit," before returning her attention to Bad Girls Club.
posted by Mooski at 5:40 PM on August 23, 2010 [7 favorites]

"I just thought he had a really long nose. Well come 5 minutes later and wasnt I surprised."
posted by Senor Cardgage at 5:41 PM on August 23, 2010 [3 favorites]

"too dumb"

I wouldn't say "dumb", but some people I talked to didn't seem very sharp.
posted by qvantamon at 5:44 PM on August 23, 2010 [5 favorites]

It's definitely a neat idea. Tried it out for a bit.. thus far, no cocks! Also, I ran into a MeFite—collywobbles to be precise—and had a quick chat. I imagine there are many blurry MeFites on there right about now.
posted by defenestration at 6:09 PM on August 23, 2010

How else would I have known defenestration has a beard? (Other than actually looking at his profile)
posted by collywobbles at 6:11 PM on August 23, 2010

This is like getting used to ChatRoulette in an '80s arcade and then rushing out to buy the home Atari version and being all like, "shit, that's blocky."
posted by tapesonthefloor at 6:12 PM on August 23, 2010 [6 favorites]

BLURRY MAN! I DIDN'T GET YOUR NAME!! YOU WEREN'T LIKE ALL THE REST!!!
posted by tapesonthefloor at 6:16 PM on August 23, 2010

I explained this briefly to my wife, who looked at me for a long moment, then said "I'm so glad we don't have to deal with that shit,"...

This is the most frequent reason I give for appreciating my wife. "Oh man, I just remembered dating. I'm so glad we have each other." (And as proof that we were made for each other, she takes this as a compliment.)
posted by DU at 6:27 PM on August 23, 2010

I got on the Internet because I was kicked out of real life for being too ugly. :(
posted by planet at 6:42 PM on August 23, 2010 [4 favorites]

confused a few people by asking them "Are your a friend of Matt Haughey?"

Actually found one.
posted by ShawnString at 6:44 PM on August 23, 2010 [4 favorites]

Dammit, that was boring. I always wanna joke around and no one wants to joke around. No wang as of yet, however, so that's a good sign.
posted by Kloryne at 6:54 PM on August 23, 2010

Speaking of Chatroulette, looks like it may be getting an overhaul.
posted by peripathetic at 7:11 PM on August 23, 2010

Ok either you people are drinking on Monday night or you have the mettle to do this random video chat thing sober. Either way I envy you.
posted by vapidave at 8:16 PM on August 23, 2010

Met an actress from Smallville.
posted by outlandishmarxist at 8:34 PM on August 23, 2010

"The experiment #1 is over now. Thanks for participating.
Renewed and updated version of the website will be launched today"


Looks like Chatroulette has finally bit the dust. I wonder if the new chatroulette site will be all masturbating guys all the time. I never got to see it and I don't feel like I missed a part of internet history.
posted by MaddCutty at 9:13 PM on August 23, 2010

For some reason, reading this OP literally made me laugh out loud. I guess I just reached the point where the Internet resembles a satire of itself and it cracks me up that I don't usually even notice.
posted by threeants at 9:34 PM on August 23, 2010 [4 favorites]

leaving you to form relationships with other people under less superficial circumstances.

That's what you do when life hands you a chance to be with someone special. You just grab that brownish area by its points and you don't let go no matter what your mom says.
posted by eddydamascene at 10:04 PM on August 23, 2010 [5 favorites]

About the Chatroulette outage: I like imagining that "the experiment" is much darker than anyone realizes. When the site comes back up, it'll consist of taggable, searchable recordings of every Chatroulette conversation.
posted by roll truck roll at 10:06 PM on August 23, 2010 [4 favorites]

Also: I've spent more time than Chatroulette and Omegle than I'd care to admit, but I spend so much of it being skipped for being old, or a fag or something. What I'd love is a 25+ random chat site.
posted by roll truck roll at 10:09 PM on August 23, 2010

I dress my penis up in miniature clothes and a little wig. Works like a charm as long as it's blurry.
posted by Anything at 12:02 AM on August 24, 2010 [1 favorite]

To get it to work on my Mac, I had to mess with the settings window that pops up, setting the camera to USB for some reason. I have a Macbook Pro with a built-in camera, but the default settings in the camera window didn't work.
posted by emelenjr at 4:33 AM on August 24, 2010

You know, in real life you get to bypass the blurry filter like some uber-BP-hacker.
posted by Civil_Disobedient at 4:44 AM on August 24, 2010

To increase the likelihood of a good match the next time, you are able to rate your chat partner with tags like [...]"too ugly"[.] This way, the worst people are filtered away, and the mechanisms to game are gone, leaving you to form relationships with other people under less superficial circumstances.

I'm flabbergasted by this. Isn't the whole point of the blurriness so you can meet people without being judged on your physical appearance?
posted by Ian A.T. at 8:55 AM on August 24, 2010

I'm pretty sure those guys are looking for other guys.

Why?
posted by Sys Rq at 10:36 AM on August 24, 2010

They already have this for job interviews. You go in and the job is vaguely interesting and something you're qualified in. Then as you start it becomes clearer and clearer that this is certaintly not the job you applied for. The ad/interview said graphic artist not help desk triage. Assholes.
posted by stormpooper at 10:41 AM on August 26, 2010 [2 favorites]

I wonder if anyone had a "2 girls 1 cup" reaction once the other side became focused?
posted by stormpooper at 10:42 AM on August 26, 2010

To increase the likelihood of a good match the next time, you are able to rate your chat partner with tags like "too grumpy", "too ugly", and "too dumb". This way, the worst people are filtered away, and the mechanisms to game are gone, leaving you to form relationships with other people under less superficial circumstances.

I'm flabbergasted by this. Isn't the whole point of the blurriness so you can meet people without being judged on your physical appearance?

Maybe it's the tagger that gets filtered out? :)
posted by purplecrackers at 10:00 AM on August 27, 2010