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Goodbye Omegle: how the anonymous chatroom traumatized our teen years | Social media | The Guardian

theguardian.com · 1,652 words · saved by 1 readers

I t was usually only a matter of minutes before we’d see the first penis. As we huddled giggling around someone’s family computer, hauled into a bedroom for secrecy, they became a routine part of our childhood sleepovers. One after another, the penises would flash up on screen, as we fell about screaming with laughter, half-covering our eyes with our school jumper sleeves. “Ewwww! Next, next!” Someone would click “next”. The routine began again. We were not looking for the penises on the now defunct anonymous chat room Omegle, but they would find us nonetheless. It was 2012, and the possibilities of social media still felt new and exciting to young teens like us. The iPhone, Instagram, Tumblr – all were relatively new inventions. We were children, but we were also the guinea pigs of this burgeoning internet space. It was ours to explore, and our parents – and politicians – were none the wiser. They would have been horrified if they’d known who we “met” on Omegle. The sole function of O

The sole function of Omegle, created in 2009, was to match users at random for one-on-one video chats. Illustration: Guardian Design/Getty View image in fullscreen The sole function of Omegle, created in 2009, was to match users at random for one-on-one video chats. Illustration: Guardian Design/Getty Social media This article is more than 2 years old Goodbye Omegle: how the anonymous chatroom traumatized our teen years This article is more than 2 years old My generation became a target for abuse on the video-chat site – and our parents had no idea This article contains descriptions of online

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