Chatroulette, the addictive instant video chat site, has disappeared. Instead of teenage genitalia, its homepage has a message: "The experiment #1 is over now. Thanks for participating." Experiment?

Apparently a "renewed and updated version of the website will be launched today," and all the internet is sitting forward in its wank seats, wondering what the next iteration will be. Will the new Chatroulette have solved its penis problem? Will it know how to make money? Will it be one giant viral marketing campaign for Eli Roth's new movie? Or perhaps, like so many rejected video chatters, Chatroulette has hit "next" and rejected us all.

Or—worse—what if it wasn't a "beta version of my website" experiment, but a "social experiment," which is the excuse overwhelmed bloggers use when they get tired of their schtick and want to quit, but first need an excuse to help them reclaim the moral high ground? Or—worse still!—it could be an actual social experiment, like the Stanford Prison Experiment, the kind that turns innocent participants into child-torturing Nazis, in which case Richard Lawson is one goose step away from killing us all.

For the record, here's what Chatroulette's homepage currently looks like:

[via Buzzfeed]