I coincidentally ran into this community as a suggestion on the sidebar and got curious, so I joined. I’m considering trying Omegle out, but before I do, I’d like to know what I’d be getting myself into. Also, are there any protective rules I should follow?? For example, “Don’t share your real name.”
You can find really cool and interesting people on there, but it can take some time - I wouldn’t exactly recommend this if you have lots of urgent things to do. Sometimes you’ll get to meet specialists (some trade, IT, medicine, science, etc.), people with all kinds of stories and people who are willing to listen to yours. You could get someone who’s troubled or is seeking a strangers opinion.
Besides that, you can expect:
- lots of horny people (can be partially mitigated by using interests, some make it worse though)
- bots (can be mitigated by using interests)
- some people who you can’t keep a conversation with (just politely skip them)
Malicious people / trolls are rare, from my experience. But you can expect to see the best and worst that complete anonymity brings
There are 3 sections:
- chat (text only)
- video (webcam and text)
- unmoderated video (same as above, but explicitly NSFW)
I’ve mainly used the text section, so most of the advice here applies to it. There are also interests, which can help filter people out - you are matched with someone who put in the same one(s). Niche interests are rarely used though.
As for safety, standard precautions will do:
- Giving your full name / address / other identifying info is usually not a good idea
- If you suspect you’re chatting with a bot, just ask them non-standard questions - they’re not programmed to deal with those
- Eventually you’ll meet someone that you want to keep talking to on another platform - but don’t let anyone pressure you. Personally, I don’t give out social media that has links to my other socials
- If you use the video section, be warned that someone could use plugins to get your IP - which they can get your approximate location from. Chat section does not have this issue.
- If someone makes you uncomfortable, skip them asap
Oh, and people absolutely love when you show interest or knowledge about their culture! Just a few words in their language or some trivia goes a long way. Hope this helps and good luck with omegling, if you decide to give it a try!
ooh! now I’m excited. thank you for the thorough introduction. I’ll let you know how it turns out 😀
