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Identity tourism: a term coined by Lisa Nakamura in her essay Cybertyping and the Work of Race in the Age of Digital Reproduction, which refers to adopting a new online persona that lies outside of one’s gender and race to “experience” a new identity. Through her research, Nakamura found identity tourism occurring on internet chatrooms at an alarming rate—mostly white males who “try on” different races, ages and gender behind the anonymity of their computer screen.

Using this anonymity, virtual community members are able to live vicariously through fictitious personas. This new perceived convergence between the body and technology inspired Allucquere Rosanne Stone’s analysis of the body in her essay Will the Real Body Please Stand Up? Boundary Stories About Virtual Cultures. Although both Stone and Nakamura recognize the freedoms associated with a sense of disembodiment on the web, they ultimately agree that the body is both important and relevant when understanding the online experience.

 So, what happens when you CAN’T hide behind the freedom of anonymity, race, age, or gender online? What happens when your body is directly linked to your identity online? ChatRoulette, the popular website that lets you videochat with users from around the world, serves as the perfect interface through which Stone and Nakamura’s theories are explained.

Here is a screenshot of me and (finally!) a real person on ChatRoulette. He was from Germany.

When logging onto ChatRoulette, you are randomly paired up with a stranger. You can talk or chat with this stranger or, if you choose, can “next” them—meaning, your conversation will end and you will be given a new stranger to talk to. Through the concepts of anonymity, virtual space, and “nexting”, ChatRoulette shows that the visual presence of the body shapes the user experience.

Identity anonymity does not exist on ChatRoulette. A user can no longer hide behind a false identity. A white male cannot lie and say he is a 20-year old female. According to Stone, “No matter how virtual the subject may become, there is always a body attached….consciousness remains firmly rooted in the physical” (93). On ChatRoulette, your identity is linked to the physical presence of your body.

This presence shapes the demographics of users. Nakamura highlights that identity tourism makes it seem that the internet population is more diverse than it actually is. This, however, is not a problem on ChatRoulette because anonymity does not exist.

In this Tech Crunch article, a group of programmers set out to find data about ChatRoulette. After 2,883 conversations, they found that 89 percent of ChatRoulette users were male. Although the article did not chronicle race, Nakamura would see this as testament to the fact that when anonymity is dissolved, users cannot explore identity freedom. Thus, the importance of the presence of the physical body is highlighted.

Another concept that is highlighted through ChatRoulette is the concept of space. Stone recognizes the importance of space in virtual communities. She discusses how chatroom users often refer to the conference area as a physical public space, often commenting on it as a medium through which people can “meet.” ChatRoulette is most certainly emblematic of this physical space—a location where people can “meet.” This virtual space produces a community, which in turn is an “apparatus for the production of body” (Stone 87). Further, ChatRoulette can be visualized as Cartesian—some users are “higher up” on the desirability scale. You are more likely to be “nexted” if you are an older male than if you are a younger female. One writer recounts his experiences of being “nexted” versus when his wife sat at the computer. Additionally, being alone makes you more likely to be “nexted” than being in a group.

The concept of “nexting” highlights the real-time presence of the body. Stone would see ChatRoulette as an innovative solution to the drive for sociality because consciousness and presence on ChatRoulette is rooted in the body (93). Virtual community, according to Stone, “originates in, and must return to, the physical” (94). The concept of “nexting” situates the body and user in real-time, an important component of modern cyberspace communities. Nakamura attributes this to user-situated agency, an important component of technological liberation (319). Because the user has the agency to “next,” she is dictating her online experience through her body.

For example, here is someone I "nexted" immediately! Notice how this user tried to hide behind anonymity (a sexual ad). But since I could not see his or her face, I did not want to engage with this user. Anonymity results in an immediate "next." 

The concepts of anonymity, space, and “nexting” show how ChatRoulette adopts Stone and Nakamura’s theory of the importance of the body on cyber communities. Although it is true that Stone and Nakamura discuss artifacts in which the physical body is not visible, ChatRoulette serves as an interesting artifact to show what happens when identity tourism is no longer an option.