Azar has facilitated over 100 billion video chats with its app, which randomly connects strangers around the globe. But until recently, the Seoul-based app — which shares a parent company, Match, with Tinder, Hinge, and OkCupid — hasn’t been available in the U.S.
The U.S. market could be tough to crack. For millennials who grew up with access to platforms like Omegle and Chatroulette, random video chat apps were like Ouija boards. But instead of conjuring the jumpscare-inducing signs of a specter, these apps were known for yielding unexpectedly pantless men, a horror perhaps more frightening than the supernatural.
Omegle shut down last year as part of a settlement in a $22 million sex trafficking lawsuit. Chatroulette technically still exists, though South Park disparaged the site as a haven for sexual predators, and Salon eulogized it in 2010 (“Cause of death: penises”).
