I have a unique mix of admiration and pity for Andrey Ternovskiy, the idealistic Russian scamp who gave us Chatroulette. In one, graceful gesture he managed to give us the very essence of the Internet. Chatroulette is so many things, most of all an unintentional commentary on the very nature of the most significant technological development since the invention of computers themselves. Last week Chatroulette went on a brief hiatus with Ternovskiy promising an updated, better version of the site. When it returned to the Web today, there were no real differences between the old and new. Maybe it was a publicity stunt, maybe Ternovskiy got tied up doing other things, maybe he'll launch an actual update soon. For now, it's the same old Chatroulette in all its absurd glory.

If you ever want an example of the folly of youthful idealism, look no further than Chatroulette. Andrey Ternovskiy, then just 17, created the site with the intention of connecting people from all over the world, creating an open forum for friendship and discourse without the increasingly irrelevant trappings of social cliques and national boarders. This has been the intended mission of many Web applications and few, if any, have even come close to achieving such ends. The reason, of course, is dicks.

I mean this both literally and colloquially. Chatroulette quickly became famous for being a site where users are almost guaranteed to see a stranger's man-bits when the video chat randomizer calls up a new user. Some news outlets were reporting chances higher than 10% of getting flashed on the site. This naturally resulted in a lot of hand-wringing about how many children were likely to be exposed to this lewd behavior, though it didn't do any favors for the adult population on Chatroulette, either. It seemed that a few bad apples were spoiling things for everybody. And by "a few" I mean a statistically significant subset. As of the "update" and the completely arbitrary, unfiltered "adult" section of the site, there has been no noticeable reduction in the volume of human reproductive organs featured on Chatroulette.

This is the story with the Internet as a whole. The technology really does have the potential to open up the world, to connect people in ways they never could have dreamed to in the past. If it weren't for boorish, self-centered abusers of the system, if it weren't for dicks, the Internet would be a virtual utopia. It doesn't stop with the flashers, though. You're just as likely to come across some gimmick Chatroulette user who wears a funny costume or starts singing a silly song the second the window pops up. Sure, it's fun and mildly amusing, but it's also never going to bridge the divide of cultures and create a world of open, honest communication. Even without the trolls and deviants, the Internet is an oppressively silly place. We often have to choose between degradation and humor on the Web, leaving precious little room for anything more serious or productive. The Internet has no real boundaries and no serious consequences for inappropriate behavior, so people push and act like idiots on the Internet whenever possible.

I applaud Andrey Ternovskiy for his efforts and I hope to live to see the day when the Internet can be taken seriously. For now, it's just a digital version of the lesser cave paintings of early Homo Sapiens. It's crude, doesn't even begin to live up to its potential and, yes, has a disproportionate amount of genital-related content.