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Ben Folds ode to Chatroulette

Chatroulette, the webcam chat program, is enjoying its moment in the Web spotlight.[briefbreak]

The free software won acclaim for letting webcam chatters meet anyone in the world by clicking the Next button, what Benjamin Boles called “human channel surfing.”

Now even offshoots of Chatroulette are rocketing to viral status.

Check out Chatrouroulette Piano Improv, where a dude named Merton freestyles piano chords while he randomly meets people on this chat program. Supposedly, he doesn’t know what face (or penis) will pop up on his webcam next. Merton is quick, crude and skilled on the ivories. His two videos are hovering close to the two million-view mark each.

An interesting sublot: some fans think Merton is really Ben Folds, in disguise. His voice is similar, and they bang out chords with the same punctuation.

This speculation begat another Chatroulette phenom – Ben Folds’ own OdeToMerton (well, the page is called OdeToMerlin because it looks like someone already took the Merton-ode route). He freestyles on keys while also surfing on Chatroulette, but his concert audience is watching it all live. Is he trying to prove he’s really not Merton? Then again, the video titles are practically homages.

In Folds’ latest video, he combines Chatroulettes sessions from his Richmond and Charlottesville shows. The best scene is when he freestyles a song about a dude wearing a Viking helmet and drinking tequila from the bottle.

Why would anyone want more piano freestyle chat webcam randomness? Ben Folds makes it work, much like Merton did, but the added fun is seeing 1,500 fans react to every spot-on lyric or webcam mugshot. Ben Folds might be wearing out this meme too thin, but looks like YouTubers can’t get enough.

Chatroulette is bigger than it was supposed to be. The inventor – a 17-year-old high school student from Moscow – says he just wanted to create a place where he and his friends could chat with random people. Who knew Ben Folds and some mystery man named Merton would play with this software like it a jazz riff?

My prediction for the next chatroutte trends? We’ll see Kardinal freestyle rapping with Chatroulette, Cris Angel using the software for some lame magical feat, and an OK Go music video consisting entirely of Chatroulette-filmed footage.[rssbreak]

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