Video Chat Omegle Shuts Down After 14 Years Of Connecting Strangers

The well-known video chat service and site Omegle, a popular platform that spawned too many viral videos to count and has been a prime destination for all sorts of pranks and trolling since its conception, has suddenly shut down.

On Wednesday evening, the anonymous video chat Omegle shut down its service after 14 years online. Launched in 2009 as an online chat service and then introducing its video chat feature in 2010, Omegle.com now displays a final message from the service's founder and owner Leif K-Brooks on its front page.

In a lengthy farewell message, K-Brooks, who founded the site when he was just 18 years old, quoted C.S. Lewis and said that in the past years, the public pressure on the site became too much to handle, writing that "recent attacks have felt anything but constructive" and that "the only way to please these people is to stop offering the service."

Adding that operating Omegle became no longer sustainable, both financially and psychologically, K-Brooks also argued for a less sanitized internet, stating that "a healthy, free society cannot endure when we are collectively afraid of each other to this extent."

In the past few years, Omegle repeatedly drew public attention over reports of grooming, indoctrination and verbal abuse happening on the platform. Some of the most infamous trolls who achieved their popularity in part due to their activity on the platform are alt-right streamers GypsyCrusader and CatboyKami.

Considering the controversial status of the platform, the shutdown of Omegle was lamented by some and celebrated by others as word of its sudden shutdown spread across the internet last night.

Omegle has also been a prominent tool for content farming among prankers and TikTokers, and has just recently spawned a meme known as Omegle Rizz.