Twitch.TV and Parasocial Interaction: Understanding Twitch’S Social Features Within a Parasocial Framework

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Twitch.TV and Parasocial Interaction: Understanding Twitch’s Social Features Within a Parasocial Framework

Maren Zeinstra June 26th, 2017 Supervisor: Dhr. Dr. Markus Stauff Second reader: Dhr. Dr. Toni Pape Television and Cross-Media Culture University of Amsterdam

Table of contents

Chapter 1. Introduction page 3

Chapter 2. Commentators page 10

Chapter 3. Streamers page 20

Chapter 4. Viewers page 30

Chapter 5. Conclusions page 39

Bibliography page 41

1. Introduction

1.1 Introduction Twitchis an online platform founded in 2011 (https://twitch.tv) where users live-stream themselves while playing a video game, displaying gameplay andincluding webcam and microphoneto communicate with their viewers (image 1.1). According to Twitch, the community consists of more than 2 million live-streamers and close to 10 million visitors per day (About Twitch).Besides individual users, organizations broadcast their eSports tournaments where gamers and teams compete for prizes (Edge 34-5). Twitch additionally offers features for social contact between users by following, subscribing, adding friends and sending personal messages. Additionally, all channelshave a chat room right next to the live-stream where userscan communicate in real time (image 1.1). Twitch users can select streams from the list of channels they “follow” at the left side of the screen, or they can browse through all live channels, of both individual streamers and organized tournaments, filtered per game, community or popularity (image 1.2). Besides the heterogeneous gaming content, Twitch introduced a “Creative” section in October 2015, where users stream themselves while cooking, painting, designing, making music, et cetera. (Moorier)(image 1.2). Other than live-streaming content, users can watch previous broadcasts on demand. When doing sousers see a “chat replay”, showing the chat room as it was during the live broadcast, thereby effacing possibilities to participate in real time chat rooms.

Image 1.1 Screenshot, 20 June 2017, .

Image 1.2 Screenshot, 20 June 2017, .

Twitch is an especially interesting part of our current media environment, as it integrates multiple media forms into one hybrid platform. Just like traditional broadcasting on television, Twitch broadcasting is based on one-to-many communication, but combined with features that allow for

3 many-to-many communication, similar to those found on social media platforms. These social features are what distinguishes the platform from otherbroadcast media, as is also argued by Sjöblom and Hamari who state Twitch might be considered “yet another form of broadcast entertainment akin to online videos, but for many users it is a more manifold and holistic communication channel than mere video media content, particularly due to the high levels of interaction” (Sjöblom and Hamari 1). Many television broadcasters now also include interactive, online features, allowing for social television where users engage more actively with television content, but Twitch has successfully integrated direct real time communication in live broadcast settings (Wohn and Na). Twitch additionally shows similarities to YouTube, as both platforms allow individuals to film and broadcast themselves towards an audience that can comment on it. The difference with YouTube lies partially in the addressing of a niche by Twitch, focusing on the specific subculture of gamers who beforehand could only communicate within games or on text- based fora. YouTube has recently experienced a growth of game-related videos too, but Twitch is specifically designed for this subculture and its content. Additionally, while live-streaming is optional on YouTube, it is the norm on Twitch which increases immediacy.This emphasis on liveness connects back to television, as liveness is often considered the main mode of television too (White 75-6). A third media form appears as Twitch integrates video games into its platform, making them the content to be consumed. While video games are often considered an individual experience, Twitch uses exactly this solitary content to connect users in a social way (Scully- Blaker et al. 2026).

Twitch is thus a unique and hybrid part of our current media environment,showing a combination of live broadcast television, video games and social media platforms. Live, linear broadcasting is combined with the social features of social media and individual interactivity of video games.This combination of different media forms brings with it certain tensions as it affords a great variety of usages and allows for a strange combination of social and non-social behaviours. Twitch has not stopped developing and is constantly integrating new interfaces, applications, browsing options and social features (https://blog.twitch.tv/tagged/new-features). Although it is impossible for researchers to keep up with the continuous developments, these new features are all interesting as they display what elements Twitch considersto need improvement or enhancement. Here, it also becomes visible how Twitch emphasizes its own social features and attempts to enhance the social, communal experience of its users. Its continuous growth over the past six years prove the platform and its community are here to stay, showing Twitch should be taken seriously and is deserving of academic attention. Analyzing Twitch can help understand how there are multiple ways for being social online, even within one hybrid platform, and thereby is an interesting case- study for understanding our entire current media environment.

1.2 Discourse on Twitch Over the past years, Twitch became object of research in a variety of academic fields. A majority of research emerges from computational, technological and mathematical fields. In 2014, Karine Pires and Gwendal Simon proposed implementing new streaming technologies in order to improve user experiences and Albert Haque designed algorithms to detect spam and trolls. These types of researches are focused on technology, designing specific codes or approaching the technical infrastructure of the platform. A second major trend of research focuses on motivations for using Twitch. These are especially interesting as there seems to be no clear consensus on the main motivation, and contradictions appear in the ways researchers approach the platform.

Researches in this field are often based on uses and gratifications theories, assuming users are active agents who choose their media content according to their current needs. In 2016 Sjöblom and Hamari employ this theory to explore the motivations of Twitch users in their article “Why Do People Watch Others Play Video Games?”, where they relate escapism, acquiring knowledge, aesthetic pleasure, personal confidence and social motivationsto Twitch usage (6-8). Interestingly, they conclude subscription behaviour is positively correlated to only social motivations (Sjöblom and Hamari 8). This connects to their previous argument Twitch is distinctive especially due to its social features and possibilities for establishing social connections (1). Their results might answer a question raised in “Behind the Game: Exploring the Twitch Streaming Platform” by Deng et al. in

2015. They explore how users are distributed across different streams, arguing no stream contains unique content as “the same games are streamed by many different people”, which raises questions on how viewers differentiate and choose between channels (Deng et al. 1). Sjöblom and Hamari’s results suggest that during these selection processes, users pick streamers that are socially attractive to them. Hamilton, Garretson and Kerne also emphasize the social aspects of Twitch in 2014 in “Streaming on Twitch: Fostering Participatory Communities of Play within Live Mixed Media” where they “describe processes through which stream communities form”(1315). They argue social interaction with likeminded individuals and the creation of “participatory online communities” is the main motivation for Twitch users (1319). They continue to argue “streams that draw more than 1.000 viewers” are too massive to gratify those social needs, as conversation breaks down and “meaningful social engagement” is lost (1318, 1320). The chat room becomes “an illegible waterfall of text” in these massive settings due to the great amount of messages, making meaningful interaction impossible (Hamilton, Garretson and Kerne 1321).

These abovementioned researchers share an emphasis on Twitch’s social features. However, a second trend of researches shows a different approach. Katyoue et al. investigate Twitch usage in 2012, in “Watch me Playing, I am a Professional: a First Study on Video Game Live Streaming”, showing those massive streams account for 95% of the views (1183). Seemingly, viewers are drawn to these huge streams and do not necessarily switch to smaller streams, despite the alleged loss of meaningful individual interaction. Similarly, Deng et al. suggest viewer distribution on Twitch is extremely skewed, as many streams have no views, while popular streamers and professional events “dominate the views”, forming “predictable flash crowds” (6). This sustains the argument that massive streams form a majority of Twitch usage and are not as problematic for Twitch users as Hamilton, Garretson and Kerne make it seem. Additionally, Georgen, Duncan and Cook approach Twitch in a framework of “participatory spectatorship”, rather than the participatory community as described by Hamilton, Garretson and Kerne (581). Georgen, Duncan and Cook argue a “silent majority” constitutes the biggest part of viewers, referring to the great amount of passive users (581). They characterize participatory spectatorship as “the active observation of a sport or spectacle in the pursuit knowledge”, emphasizing the possibilities for “lurkers” to learn new skills through observation without necessarily actively participating in the chat room (581- 2).An interesting tension surrounding the variety of Twitch usages and affordances appears, with emphasis on social behaviours versus emphasis on ‘anti’-social behaviours in passivity and massiveness. My analysis attempts to add a new framework for understanding Twitch, combining Twitch’s social features with these apparent anti-social behaviours, thereby not attempting to immediately solve tensions, but instead offer new tools or concepts for a broader understanding.

1.3 Research Question A strand of researches emphasizes the importance of social motivations for using Twitch, whereas a second trend shows a more critical approach is needed as the majority of actual usage, both passive and massive,deviates from this social ideal. In order to explore this conflict, this research explores Twitch’s interfaces, content and behaviours using “parasocial interaction”. This concept, introduced by Horton and Wohl in 1956, constitutes the idea users can experience a “simulacrum of conversational give and take” (Horton and Wohl 374). This means, despite the lack of a genuine interactive, one-on-one reciprocity, users in some cases experience the illusion of partaking in social interaction, thereby gratifying social needs. Here I am inspired by Tsiotsou, who researches parasocial interaction on social media platforms and thereby shows parasocial and social can co-exist and be intertwined on these platforms (404). A second source of inspiration was offered by Hartmann and Goldhoorn who argue parasocial interaction and enjoyment are positively correlated, leading me to believe the parasocial, and perhaps its connection to the social, might help explain Twitch usages as social needs can be gratified through seemingly ‘anti’- social behaviours (1109-10).

The research question that will guide this analysis is: in what ways does the parasocial appear, develop and connect in relation to Twitch’s social features?And, additionally, can this parasocial framework help to explain or understand Twitch in a new light?To explore these questions, an analysis of the interfaces and textual features, and the ways users respond to them, will be

5 performed. This analysis will show whether Twitch can be considered to afford parasocial interaction with Twitch performers, “personae”, and whether this creates new understandings of both social and ‘anti’-social behaviours. I believe there is a constant mix of social and parasocial,true interaction and a simulacrum of interaction, where the balance is dynamic and constantly shifting due to the complicated hybridity of the platform. While many researches thus attempt to use the social and the parasocial as fixed descriptive features, I believe Twitch is a perfect platform for analyzing how these two can converge and become combined within one platform, where social features play a role in establishing a simulacrum of the social. This analysis does not wish to invalidate individual interactions and relationships that might occur on Twitch. However, this research focuses on the users that do not engage with these behaviours, as they form a majority of Twitch usage. I am not attempting empirical research and I do not wish to devaluate previous researches nor will I attempt to resolve the question of why people use Twitch. Rather, I hope my research adds new frameworks and tools for understanding Twitch, thereby adding to discourses on Twitch, parasocial interaction and contribute to the entire current media environment within Twitch takes up a notable position.

1.4 Theoretical Framework In order to adequately structure my analysis, a more detailed exploration of the theoretical framework is necessary. In 1956 Horton and Wohl introduce parasocial interaction as the special bonds and relationships audiences develop with television performers, or “personae” (374). They argue via the illusion of a face-to-face connection, a sense of intimacy is created; viewers feel like they are addressed individually and become part of a “simulacrum of conversational give and take” (Horton and Wohl 374). This “intimacy at distance” is stimulated by informal, conversational styles and direct address (Horton and Wohl 374). Despite the fact this intimacy is one-sided, through continued watching viewers might feel like they truly know this person and start developing a relationship with similarities to interpersonal relationships (375). When the significance of the parasocial relationship grows, the media user will attempt to engage more often or more intensely with the persona which is how the relationship continues to develop.

Since its introduction, researchers have attempted to create a reliable and valid scale for measuring parasocial interaction. While Horton and Wohl delineate an interesting concept, their theory is not very precise and lacks an accurate approach. In order to productively employ their ideas, other researches that deduce and analyze more precise features of parasocial interaction need to be added. Alan M. Rubin is a notable researcher who has written multiple articles on the parasocial with a variety of colleagues and developed a 20-item scale for measuring parasocial interaction in 1985 (Rubin, Perse and Powell). In “Loneliness, Parasocial Interaction, and Local Television News Viewing”, Rubin, Perse and Powell attempt to find correlations between loneliness and parasocial interaction with television personae by developing a parasocial interaction scale (PSI-scale) based on a theoretical approach. The scale consists of 20 items on identification, affinity and attraction towards personae, like “I feel sorry for my favorite newscaster when [they make] a mistake”, “I look forward to watching my newscaster on tonight’s news”, “I like to compare my ideas with what my favorite newscaster says” (Rubin, Perse and Powell 167). This first PSI-scale is used and elaborated on by many subsequent researches.

Auter and Palmgreen explain in 2000 in “Development and Validation of a Parasocial Interaction Measure: The Audience‐Persona Interaction Scale” why they have significant problems with the PSI-scale. Firstly, they argue the scale is merely theoretical as it does “not have [its] origins in open-ended qualitative viewer surveys” (80). Secondly, the scale is “univariate”, as it only assesses “the individual’s identification with their favorite character – disregarding related, yet important concepts” (80). They develop a new scale based on television personae, the audience- persona interaction (API) scale, adding the persona’s problem-solving abilities and group interaction and identification to the equation (82-3). While Auter and Palmgreen focus on television personae, these two additions are relevant in video games too, as problem-solving abilities are reflected as skills within the video game, where users might wish they “could handle problems as well” or “would like to be more like [them]” (Auter and Palmgreen 82-3). Their items for group interaction concern “[their] interactions are similar to mine with friends”, “my friends are

6 like [them]”, “I felt included in the group”. These items become relevant for Twitch,as users can observe group interactions between various users, affect the bond they feel towards them (82-3).

David Giles wishes to develop an even more extensive model for analyzing parasocial interaction in 2002, combining the PSI-scale and API-scale and adding more elements. Firstly, David Giles explicitly introduces a “continuum of social-parasocial encounters” (293). Rubin, Perse and Powell tend to view parasocial and social as opposites, where an individual engages in either social or parasocial behaviour, and parasocial might compensate for a lack of social contacts (159). Giles, on the other hand, argues singular interactions can be placed on a continuum ranging from social to parasocial via a four item scale consisting of “(a) number of persons involved”, “(b) physical distance between interactants”, “(c) social conventions”, “(d) potential relationship between the interactants” (Giles 293). A continuum is more useful than a dichotomy when analyzing the dynamics between social and parasocial, like this research attempts to do. A second useful addition by Giles is his analysis of relationship development. While there are many similarities to Rubin and his colleagues, focusing on developing attraction, affinity and identification, Giles is the first researcher to explore the affect of the context of viewing. This context of viewing consists of aspects such as co-viewing, discussing the persona with others, and other encounters with the persona (Giles 297). While Giles does not apply his approach to online settings, as he too merely addresses television personae, his additions are especially relevant for Twitch. Twitch personae are watched concurrently with other viewers, leading to co-viewing and discussion in the chat room, making this a relevant addition. Other than that, streamers often have social media accounts, leading to other encounters with them. This online contextual setting of the encounter might affect the nature of the relationship and will thus be taken into account.

In 2011 Hartmann and Goldhoorn argue that too many researchers overemphasize developmental features and conceptualize the parasocial as “an enduring relationship (i.e., friendship)” (1104). Hartmann and Goldhoorn develop their own scale, the Experience of Parasocial Interaction (EPSI) Scale, focusing on one singular media encounter and its textual features instead. They emphasize the experience of parasocial signs, such as the addressing style of the performer, the perceived attractiveness of the character, and the perspective-taking abilities of users (1107-9). According to them, parasocial interaction is rooted in an impression of mutual awareness, rather than an ongoing development over time (Hartmann and Goldhoorn 1107). While I respect their attempt to focus on essential textual features, they neglect developmental features too much. Horton and Wohl emphasize predictability of personae is crucial for sustaining parasocial interaction, as personae need to offer “a continuing relationship”, becoming “a regular and dependable event” (375). The continuity of personae can thus not be ignored. Additionally, Rubin and McHugh show attraction develops along with exposure, meaning attraction cannot be isolated to one encounter (283). Additionally, the online contexts cannot be neglected as contexts affect and change the relationship. I do wish to take into account their critique as a reminder that not all encounters lend themselves to parasocial communications, while additionally using their precise specification of direct address.

All of the abovementioned researches solely analyzed traditional television performers. There are few predecessors when it comes to applying parasocial interaction to online media or attempting to develop a valid scale for doing so. Most of the researchers that do, are primarily interested in the promotional and marketing values of online parasocial interaction, like the chapter written by Hoerner in 1999 in Advertising and the World Wide Web, and the article written by Thorson and Rodgers in 2006 on websites used for political campaigns. Both emphasize the value of generating a parasocial feel to websites in order to be more attractive or valuable to visitors. In “The Role of Social and Parasocial Relationships on Social Networking Sites Loyalty”, 2015, Rodoula Tsiotsou similarly argues employing parasocial strategies stimulates platform loyalty for social networking sites (410). In “Parasocial Interactions and Paracommunication with New Media Characters”, 2008, Tilo Hartmann applies parasocial interaction to a new media context in a very productive and useful way. Whereas traditional parasocial interaction only applied to non- interactive, non-reciprocal, asymmetrical situations with authentic characters, Hartmann explores how “paracommunication” can also occur in interactive, reciprocal settings (Hartmann 193). Just

7 like traditional mass media, new media environments can “create an illusion of mutual awareness and symbolic behavior[sic]” (Hartmann 181). Hartmann argues “perceived distance” is a more productive framework than reciprocity in new media environments, which Hartmann defines as “the degree of conviction the user has that [their] behavioral expressions do or do not have an impact on the symbolic behavior of the other[sic]” (Hartmann 184). By replacing the dichotomy of reciprocal versus non-reciprocal, parasocial elements appear within reciprocal, interactive settings (Hartmann 186). Hartmann exemplifies this with anonymous online interaction, where despite reciprocity, parasocial interaction appears due to anonymity and great physical distance(186). Hartmann’s addition of perceived distance is relevant when considering the inherent reciprocity in Twitch’s chat rooms, allowing me to consider these chat rooms within a parasocial framework.

All these researches contribute their own elements to the discourse on the parasocial, most notably the recent application to online environments, allowing for a nuanced and elaborate model for analysis. These different texts provide useful concepts to help me apply the parasocial to Twitch. This research analyzes different engagements on Twitch and understands them on a social-parasocial continuum combining the textual, contextual and developmental features offered by this theoretical basis. As for textual elements, establishing direct address, mutual awareness, identification, attraction, authenticity and intimacy have returned as important elements. Repeated exposure is a developmental feature important for reinforcing these elements and developing a parasocial relationship. Contextually, co-viewers, discussants, and other encounters play important roles in these online settings. The concept of perceived distance is especially useful in describing the dynamics between social and parasocial in these online contexts, as it shows how they can intertwine within one encounter.

1.5 Structure In order to analyze the relationship between social and parasocial on Twitch, this research is divided according to different social roles encountered on Twitch. In order to maintain analytical focus, I will not address Twitch’s “Creative section”, but rather focus on its video game content. According to Nathan Edge, this community consists of “professional and amateur gamers, teams, commentators, sponsors, spectators and fans” (34). The sponsors are not encountered personally, but via product placement of computers, screens, keyboards, computer mouses, headphones, chairs, logos on clothing and commercials during the broadcast. Therefore, sponsors will be left out of the equation in this analysis. Professional gamers, teams and commentators are encountered in professional eSports tournaments, while amateur gamers are encountered streaming on their own individual channels. The distinction is adequately described by Karhulahti, who distinguishes between personal and impersonal live-streaming. The impersonal live-streaming is “structured by a third party organization over the individual performers and their local audience”, while personal live-streaming consists of people who own, host and structure their own stream (Karhulahti 1). In the impersonal eSports live-streams, professional teams and gamers do not communicate with their audiences. Rather, the teams and gamers appear behind their computers focused on the games. The first chapter thus focuses on the commentators during impersonal live-streams, as they are actively interacting with Twitch audiences. The second chapter focuses on the personal live-streams and the third chapter explores the role of other viewers in both impersonal and personal live-streams. Within each chapter, I explore the parasocial and social features of the first encounter with the persona, the development of a parasocial relationship between user and persona and the tensions that arise when doing so. I will combine textual, developmental and contextual features that surfaced in the theoretical framework to show how Twitch’s social features can afford parasocial interaction and whether this approach helps shed new light on the variety of usages and behaviours on Twitch.

In the first chapter, the parasocial relationships between users and commentators during competitive eSports events will be explored. The role commentators play within these events shows similarities to the persona as introduced by Horton and Wohl, which provides a great basis for the existence of parasocial interaction on Twitch. Despite these similarities, tensions emerge when exploring the online contexts surrounding these personae, where reciprocity is easily established.In the second chapter, this reciprocity is further explored by focusing on the

8 relationship between users and individual streamers which appears in inherent interactive settings with constant potential reciprocity, showing an inherently different persona. Social and parasocial elements are increasingly intertwined in this setting, further blurring distinctions between these two concepts. In the third chapter, I will explore the mutual relationships between viewers. Here, the traditional idea of a singular persona disappears, taking one more step away from traditional personae. The possibilities for parasocial relationships towards an entire community are analyzed, which I will refer to with the new concept ‘paracommunity’. Here, it appears that it is exactly Twitch’s social features that allow for such a strong parasocial connection to appear, inherently intertwining the social and parasocial and bringing its own, new values.

This analysis will add new interpretations and perspectives to Twitch usages. Even when actual interaction does not appear, social values might be fulfilled, and even in reciprocal situations the parasocial proves to be a productive framework. Through engaging with Twitch in a social, parasocial or hybrid way, with either commentators, streamers or viewers, different social needs might be gratified and a sense of community, or paracommunity, appears. The integration of the broadcast environment into an online setting provides notable similarities and distinctions to traditional television personae. As Twitch is constantly developing new features it might be argued that this analysis easily becomes outdated. However, within this constant development, a trend of constantly enhancing social features can be found, meaning this research into those social features remains relevant. I hope to show the complicated engagements on this unique hybrid platform make for an interesting research object, warranting more academic attention in the current media environment. While adding to discourses surrounding Twitch, this research is relevant for the entire media environment where all platforms are increasingly hybrid combinations of different social elements and features. Twitch takes up a notable position in this environment and can serve as an interesting case-study. Parasocial interaction might then prove to be a useful and valuable concept to apply to other social platforms as well, expanded by the concept “paracommunity”, hopefully stimulating others to apply this concept in future research. It is inspiring to see a relatively old concept like parasocial interaction still relevant in the 21st century and I hope this analysis can prove its worth as a productive framework in online settings too.

Chapter 2. Commentators

2.1 Introduction The variety of social roles encountered on Twitch structure this analysis, focussing on the commentators as personae in this first chapter. These commentators show interesting similarities to traditional television personae as described by Horton and Wohl, making them an interesting starting point for this analysis. Commentators are encountered during eSports events, such as tournaments, play-offs or championships, held in-person or online, organized and live-streamed by various professional organizations from the gaming industry (Edge 37; Karhulahti 1). The term eSports refers to electronic sports, “high-level games and spectating of digital games in a competitive atmosphere” (Edge 34). During tournaments, small groups of young, male commentators are responsible for guiding their audiences through the tournament, similar to traditional personae who seem to “exist for their audience only” (Horton and Wohl 374). Commentators welcome the viewers, summarize previous matches and introduce upcoming matches, the competing teams and their predictions for who will win. Image 2.1 shows a general example of commentators behind their desk during a major tournament 31 October 2016, similar to how talk shows hosts face their audiences. During the matches themselves, they are responsible for explaining the game and the strategies employed within them, similar to traditional sports casters. After the match, they might discuss and analyze the highlights of the match.The most popular eSports games are Counter-Strike: Global Offensive (CS:GO), Defense of the Ancients (DotA), StarCraft (SC) and League of Legends (LoL). These competitive multiplayer games consist of multiple matches between two professional teams, each lasting about an hour, leading towards the final match between the two remaining teams resolving who receives the trophy and prize money. This can last a week, a weekend or multiple consecutive weekends.In between matches, some channels will stop broadcasting, while others broadcast commercials or timers counting down until the next match. Some events take place in a stadium or event hall and can be attended by local audiences, though tournaments may also take place online or on smaller scales. TheseeSports broadcasts can be found on the great variety of channels owned by these organizations. The events often createpredictable and enormous “flash crowds”, making the channels easy to locate via Twitch’s browse features.The chat rooms allows users to comment upon the match, the gamers or the commentators, establishing reciprocity with other viewers, though the messages are often unreciprocated by commentators (Deng et al. 6).

Image 2.1 Screenshot, 13 April 2017, .

This chapter explores the possible parasocial relationship between viewers and commentators, starting with an exploration of the first encounter and how this connects to traditional parasocial theories from my theoretical framework. A tension appears surrounding the role of the online co-

10 viewer within this relationship, which will be explored in the following paragraph. Then I will consider how parasocial relationships might develop, especially paying attention to repeated exposure. A new tension appears here, as repeated exposure is less predictable in these online environments. In the last paragraph, the appearance of cross-media encounters will be analyzed along with the role these encounters play in establishing a stable persona. This chapter shows, though Twitch’s environment shows many similarities to Horton and Wohl’s traditional concept, applying their ideas to Twitch’s online context along with its social features, means the concept alters significantly and new points of focus appear.

2.2 Encountering the Commentator Users and commentatorsfirst meet each other at the start of an eSports broadcast, where commentators welcome the viewers, introduce themselves and introduce teams that will be playing in the upcoming match (image 2.1). In this first encounter direct address is employed, as the commentator “faces the spectator, uses the mode of direct address, talks as if he were conversing personally and privately”, creating the illusion they are aware of their viewers (Horton and Wohl 374). Direct address is divided into verbal and body address by Hartmann and Goldhoorn (1113- 4). Bodily, commentators face each other and the camera, making eye contact with, and thereby acknowledging, the viewer. Verbally, they explicitly greet and welcome the viewer, often addressing them with a directed “you”. A typical example is the introduction to a DotA tournament, 11 December 2015, by Dakota “KotLGuy” Cox who faces the camera and says “hello everybody, welcome back to The Summit 4, we are getting into the nitty-gritty of day number three, the winner bracket final matchup of Evil Geniuses taking on Vici Gaming. We're getting ready to get underway into game number two” (https://youtu.be/mNfEip0GKxg). Through this explicit introductory welcome, KotLGuy creates an illusion of mutual awareness and attention while acknowledging his role as guide. The directed “hello everybody” engages viewers into a social process as this expressive behaviour is directed towards them (Hartmann 181). Simultaneously, KotLGuy uses “we” to include viewers and make them part of a communal happening. This usage of “we” is commonlyused by commentators to connect their viewers to them. The “welcome back” also emphasizes the seriality of the tournament and assumes viewers saw the previous matches. However, his introductions remain inclusive and complete, still providing sufficient information for those who missed previous games, making them feel equally included. It is these modes of direct address that immediately establish aparasocial interaction between viewers and commentators through a felt mutual awareness, inclusion and connection.

During the match itself, the commentators are invisible and only present audibly. The mode of address shifts to a less direct mode, as both bodily and verbal direct address decrease. However, they do sustain their guiding role in commentating on the match for viewers, similar to how a sports caster is responsible for guiding viewers through a match, thereby sustaining the created parasocial connection of simulated mutual awareness to the viewers. Their vocal cues remain engaging, as during tense or exciting moments the commentators start talking louder and more enthusiastically. This phenomenon has turned so common that commentators are also called “shoutcasters”, referring to their enthusiastic, loud commentating style (Cheung and Huang 768).During a CS:GO match between NIP and F’natic, commentator Anders Blume was extremely surprised by an unexpected turn of events, at which he yelled “OH MY GOOD WHAT [incomprehensible screaming]. Oh my god, I am at a loss for words right now. These NIP retakes, they’re giving me a heart attack” (https://youtu.be/mtcLILJ3LIg). In another match between Cloud9 and Dignitas, Anders yells, without taking a breath, “HIKO ARE YOU KIDDING ME HE’S GONNA GO WIN THE ROUND HIKO MAKES IT A TRIPPLE KILL AND CLOUD9 WIN IT THIS IS UNREAL WHAT?!” (https://youtu.be/mtcLILJ3LIg). Anders’ lack for words and incomprehensible yelling, display honest surprise at that moment. The spontaneity of responses to live events, increases authenticity as they display honest excitement and enthusiasm to events unfolding in real time. This honesty and authenticity is argued by Hartmann to be essential for establishing and maintaining parasocial interaction, as viewers have to feel they are encountering a true, responsive and social human being (Hartmann 187). Additionally, witnessing the events simultaneously with the commentator in a shared liveness increases the sense of an intimate connection. This authentic and emotional shoutcasting is appreciated by viewers, not only in

CS:GO, but in other games too, proven by the compilation videos on YouTube where users collect the most memorable shoutcasting moments by their favourite commentators.

Additionally, this informal commentating style with laughter, yelling and cursing creates a relaxed, friendly atmosphere. There are often multiple commentators, allowing them to interact with each other like close friends might, making fun of each other via snide remarks or inside jokes. During a CS:GO tournament, 5 March 2017, commentator Lauren “Pansy” Scottasks co-commentator Jason “Moses” O’Toole “what are your thoughts on this?”, to which Moses answers “I have no idea”. Pansy replies with laughter and a sarcastic “great job, Moses, nice” (https://twitch.tv/videos/126623028). Displaying, or simulating, this friendship via recognizable group interaction helps the spectator feel “included in a group” and part of their intimate and spontaneous friendship, increasing the felt intimacy(Auter and Palmgreen 82-3). This relaxed style is maximized in a unique way by the channel BeyondTheSummit, where tournaments are broadcast from a regular living room (image 2.2)(https://twitch.tv/beyondthesummit). The commentators are on their couches in comfortable everyday clothes, without shoes, talking like friends watching television together (image 2.2). During these broadcasts, gamers and commentators walk into the kitchen behind them to grab drinks or snacks, creating a relaxed and intimate atmosphere where it feels like they are regular friends and the viewer is part of this informal friendship. While this example is an exception, BeyondTheSummit is known and liked for this informal, relaxed style. An interesting side note to the friendship between commentators is the names they address each other with, as they alternate between nicknames and real names. During one tournament, the commentator who was previously addressed as “Moses”, is now constantly addressed with his real name, “Jason”(https://twitch.tv/videos/98181519). Even within one event, commentators alternate in how they refer to each other.During a BeyondTheSummit broadcast, Joshua “Steel” Nissan is referred to as Josh, Joshuaor Steel, displaying there are apparently no general rules in distinguishing between real names and nicknames as both are used in similar friendly, informal contexts (https://twitch.tv/videos/137508335). At the start of an event, a bar on screen displays both real names and nicknames, sometimes along with Twitter usernames too, including viewers in all informal modes of address these commentators use for each other, further increasing the simulated friendship between viewer and commentator.

Image 2.2Screenshot, 25 April 2017, .

The informality increases authenticity and intimacy as users can identify friendly group interaction, but also contributes to the attraction viewers feel towards commentators. Rubin and McHugh research different forms of attraction (“social, physical, and task attraction”) and its role in developing relationships, both mediated and unmediated (283-4). Social attraction appears when personae appear friendly, likeable and display “similar attitudes”, which is stimulated via a shared subculture (Rubin and McHugh 285). The way commentators address each other and their

12 audiences connects to that subculture, in humour, jargon, similar codes and values and enthusiastic responses to similar interests. A second form of attraction, task attraction, depends on the persona’s “ability to get the job done” and relates to the validity and precision of analyses by commentators (Rubin and McHugh 285). Commentators gain more respect and validity from personal gaming history, displaying great knowledge and precise observations. The most popular commentators are liked for a combination of precise analyses, funny remarks and honest enthusiasm, a combination of task and social attraction. These preferences are reflected in a YouTube-video, 14 March 2017, made by Duncan “Thorin” Shields, a commentator and eSports analyst himself, who argues “Sadokist” is currently the best commentator due to his precise analytical skills and his humour (https://youtu.be/bFxGEMGPHqU).The relevance of physical attraction seems to disappear, consistent with Rubin and McHugh who conclude physical attraction is insignificant for parasocial interaction (288). Interestingly, most commentators are male in a predominantly malesubculture, meaning a potential gender difference might disappear from sight (Horton and Wohl 381-2; Consalvo 86). This will be addressed in the next chapter.

Image 2.3Screenshot, 20 June 2017, . Image 2.4 Screenshot, 20 June 2017, .

The chat room often responds to conversational topics initiated by commentators or their predictions for upcoming matches (https://twitch.tv/videos/134436381). This can be stimulated by commentators who ask their audiences to share their opinions or predictions. In image 2.3, users respond to predictions for a match between “FaZe” and “HellRaisers”(HR) by typing their favourite team’s names along with their anticipated final scores. Simultaneously, Spietres comments “THORING ON POINT”, refers to the preciseness of the predictions by commentator Thorin, showing appreciation for his skills. Some events initiate polls that register chat predictions, allowing the organization to display percentages on Twitch’s expectations for the match during the broadcast. This feature is not available during all tournaments, but the presence of this option might contribute to viewers’ motivations to respond and engage with the commentators, enhancing the parasocial feel of the encounter. Other than content, the chat room often responds to the way commentators behave or express themselves. During tense and exciting moments, commentators start speaking more enthusiastically and faster, not only shoutcasting, but also “speed”-casting. When this happens, the chat will be seen messaging “Rap God”, by which they jokingly refer to the similarities to the high speed of lyrics in rap songs, additionally displaying appreciation by referring to them as “God” (image 2.4). These types of responses are common, proving viewers socially engage with both content and performances of commentators. Participation in these responses to commentators might contribute to theconnection viewers feel towards them, despite the fact that the relationship remains one-sided as commentators do not reciprocate. An interesting connection appears between social interaction and parasocial interaction, as the social contributes and stimulates the parasocial. However, these social conversations might also be considered part of the social relationship towards viewers, rather thancommentators. Especially in massive streams with busy chat rooms, participation in the chat means spectators need to divide their attention between the match, the commentator and the chat. The chat might here be argued to distract viewers from the intimate relationship towards the persona,contradictory to television spectators who are less aware of co-viewers and thereby more individually connected to the persona.

This paragraph shows a simulated connection between viewer and commentator via direct address, creating the illusion of mutual awareness, intimacy, attraction and motivation for developing a relationship. The features of the commentator and content of the broadcast thus allow for a traditional parasocial interaction to appear. However, the added features in Twitch’s chat room and the constant visibility of co-viewers do affect this parasocial experience. On the one hand, engaging with Twitch’s chat rooms canincrease the parasocial bond users feel, while on the other hand it might decrease intimacy and distract users from their individual bond to the persona. As the exact nature of their role is not yet clear, the next paragraph will explore the contextual co- viewer and Twitch’s chat room and the ways they affect parasocial interaction.

2.3 Co-Viewers This paragraph explores the way co-viewersin Twitch’s chat rooms affect the bond between viewers and commentators as it appears they decrease the degree of intimacy and attention towards commentators, but they might also be argued to play a sustaining role. Horton and Wohl describe “discussions which the spectator may undertake with other people” about the persona might influence the relationship (379).Horton and Wohl also argue visible studio audiences are strategically “coaching the audience” into appropriate roles by showing responses towards the host through applauding, cheering or booing (Horton and Wohl 377). Seeing these responses towards hosts makes it easier to imagine one’s own interaction with them. Giles more explicitly divides these contributions of “other users” up into “co-viewers” as coaches or guides and “discussants” as people to discuss the persona with (299). These two functions of other viewers are now compared to both Twitch’s local studio audiences and Twitch’s online co-viewers.

When comparing local eSports audiences to traditional studio audiences, similarities emerge in their position, both directly facing the broadcast content live. However, eSports audiences are not necessarily aware and responding to commentators, nor do commentators explicitly address these local audiences as they seem to merely exist for the audiences at home. A relationship as established between traditional studio audiences and television hosts does not appear, as they show no interaction to each other. These local audiences can sustain emotional involvement to the

14 match itself, as they do respond to events within the game. However, they do not position themselves in a role towards the commentators, meaning the traditional coaching or guiding role of studio audiences disappears in these eSports events. Rather, this traditional guiding role of studio audiences is taken up by online co-viewers in the live chat room offered and displayed by Twitch. Here, active, real timeresponses to the commentators appear, cheering, booing, responding to content or behaviours, displaying possible roles for other audience members. Conversational topics are taken up in the chat room, stimulating others to consider or share their own predictions for the upcoming match or to also engage with the conversation. A fun example of this is when, during Smash Summit Spring 2017, 3 March 2017, the commentators are informally discussing their breakfasts (http://twitch.tv/videos/125880494). Chat users message “I had an apple this morning”, “eat fruits last”, “fruits are not good for you”, “fruit for breakfast is amazing”, “fruit is dessert”. The chat room is mingling in the conversation, replying to statements made by the commentators as if part of a reciprocal conversation, while in reality commentators do not read or respond to these messages. As certain viewers respond, others are stimulated to engage with thisvisible conversation too while simultaneously faced with the active possibility to do so in the chat room. In this sense, spectators are thus guided by their online co-viewers. It might then be argued participation in the chat room is guided or coached by organizations, who might initiate polls, or by Twitch, with an interface where viewers are faced with co-viewers and actively invited into the conversations in the chat room.

Besides guiding and stimulating viewers, chat participants also function as discussants. By reiterating beliefs, displaying appreciation or invalidation of commentators, attraction is affected. During Smash Summit Spring 2017, chat users address the absence of commentator Aziz “Hax$” Al-Yami (http://twitch.tv/videos/1258804940). Comments like “where the fuck is Hax?”, “WHERE IS HAX$”, “WE NEED HAX”, “GIVE ME HAX”, or simply “HAX”, express an appreciation of Hax$, increasing his overall validity and attraction.Simultaneously, appreciation and validation of commentators that were present at that moment is affected negatively, as they apparently do not measure up to Hax$. Twitch’s online co-viewers thus take up a double sustaining function, where they are both comparable to studio audiences in guiding or stimulating behaviours and additionally function as discussants in displaying, reiterating or negotiating beliefs about the commentator.

In these eSports events, the amount of viewers is often very high (Deng et al. 6). Giles suggests not only the content of expressions, but the “number of persons involved” also affects the parasocial (293). Here, a tension between massiveness and intimacy appears. As there are many other viewers involved, the sense of individual relevance and intimacy is reduced. Viewers are constantly aware of the amount of other viewers engaging with the same persona, which stimulates a more critical look upon the persona and decreases intimacy. Increased audience sizes thereby might distract the viewer from theirconnection with the commentator, shifting attention more towards these co-viewers. Additionally, as audience sizes grow it is often argued meaningful conversations are harder to establish, which decreases their sustaining function as guide or substantive discussant. While co-viewers can thus sustain parasocial relationships, an increased amount of co-viewers might actually reduce their stimulating function.

This paragraph shows online co-viewers can indeed sustain the parasocial, functioning as both discussant and studio audience. The visibilityof co-viewers stimulates parasocial interaction by displaying possible attitudes and responses, while it simultaneously allows for live, synchronous discussions concerning the persona, affecting attraction and validation. Contrariwise, in massive settings with great audience sizes, thissustaining role is reduced due to decreased intimacy, decreased meaningful conversation and dividedattention. This dual role will be explored further in later chapters. This paragraph shows tensions between massiveness and intimacy, as well as connections between social features and parasocial experiences. Participation in the chat room might be considered a social activity, while simultaneously serving parasocial functions, blurring the definition of what it means to behave socially or parasocially.

2.4 Developing a Relationship The next step within this analysis will be exploring whether and how parasocial interactions between viewer and commentator grow more intimate, as one parasocial experience is not equal to the development of a relationship. This intimacy is developed over time with repeated exposure, as commentators often return for multiple tournaments of specific games. Within one single tournament repeated encounters also occur, as there is often a small crew of commentators who alternate in guiding the viewer during the entire event. Rubin and McHugh analyze the development of relationships, arguing repeated exposure is a strategy actively employed by viewers to decrease uncertainty and increase intimacy with a persona (281-2). According to them, repeated exposure is necessary for “uncertainty reduction” and increasing attraction, intimacy and importance of the relationship (282-3). Repeated exposure thus helps understand a persona better, increasing the sense that the viewer “knows” the commentator “more profoundly than others do; that he ‘understands’ his character and appreciates his values and motives” (Horton and Wohl 375). Additionally, repeated exposure is essential for understanding certain jokes and references commentators make. The previously mentioned quote from Anders Blume who enthusiastically yells “are you kidding me?!”, has become a well-known quote within the CS:GO community and is often jokingly used and referred to by other commentators. Via repeated exposure a shared history and shared knowledge is established, necessary for understanding these types of references and increasing felt intimacy.

Commentators often emphasize their own seriality and returning nature. In January 2017, RiotGames started a LoL-competition between American universities, the “uLoL Campus Series 2017”. Each Tuesday, two university teams play a match, hosted by Tom Searfoss and Mark Zimmerman. In the first broadcast, 23 January 2017, they welcome viewers to the series, promising “to make this season the best one yet”, thereby already emphasizing their returning character and inviting viewers to join the entire season (https://twitch.tv/videos/116861380). After the first match Tom employs direct address while inviting their viewers to return, “that’s our show for today but thank you for watching and we’ll hope to see you again next week”. The second match of the series, 31 January 2017, Tom starts with: “Hello and welcome back to the 2017 uLoL campus series, I’m Tom Searfoss and joining me once again this week at the desk is Mark Zimmerman,” to which Mark replies “yeah, I’m happy to be back” (https://twitch.tv/videos/118593785). Their seriality is thus already normalized and emphasized in this second week. In the tenth week of the series, 28 March 2017, Tom introduces Mark as his co- commentator, “basically as always”, emphasizing their own regularity and predictability (https://twitch.tv/videos/131682106).

While repeated encounters are possible, most events and channels are rather unpredictable. The fixed weekly broadcast of the previous mentioned uLoL-series is exceptional, which becomes clear when further examining their channel, where multiple tournaments are happening simultaneously and broadcasts alternate each other irregularly (https://twitch.tv/riotgames/videos). Some weeks have daily broadcasts, or even multiple broadcasts a day, while other weeks have no live broadcasts at all or only “reruns” of tournaments that have already been broadcast. Additionally, while the uLoL campus series can tell their viewers to return next week, most eSports events end their broadcast with vague statements on the next encounter, like “we hope to see you next time for more”, without any specifics on what and when (https://twitch.tv/videos/130180679). This is problematic, as Horton and Wohl argue it is important to making a persona’s “appearance a regular and dependable event, to be counted on, planned for, and integrated into the routines of daily life” (Horton and Wohl 375). While television broadcasting is highly institutionalized and centrally organized, providing clear information on all upcoming broadcasts in advance, Twitch does not provide any information, announcements or guidance for its viewers and there seem to be no fixed days or times for broadcasts. This is amplified by the fact eSports crossvarious time zones, meaning certain events are broadcast in the middle of the night in certain countries.Viewers have to know their way around multiple websites and social media platforms to find information on the times and channels of future events as it is often the websites of the organizations themselves that provide the necessary information (https://hltv.org,https://lolesports.com, https://starladder.com). This makes the eSports community a cross-platform phenomenon, where

16 viewers cannot depend upon a singular platform for reliable information on future encounters, but have to spread their attention across multiple platforms.

Not only channels and times of events are irregular and unpredictable, it is often also unknown which commentators will be present. In some cases, announcements for events contain information on the entire crew, but even then it will often be unpredictable which exact commentator appears at what time and what match (https://hltv.org/news/19241/dreamhack- winter-talent-announced). Generally speaking it is but at the start of the match that viewers know which commentators will be casting. This balance between recurring, yet unpredictable, commentators is exemplified by Bobby “Scar” Scarnewman’s introduction during Smash Summit Spring 2017, “we are here as we were time and time again, except we weren’t here last time, which sucked, but we’re here now” (http://twitch.tv/videos/125880494). He displays his recurrence and seriality, while simultaneously addressing his unpredictability. It is important to remember eSports broadcasts are archived on Twitch, allowing viewers to watch them on demand, creating stable other encounters that are always accessible. However, when watching archived broadcasts, the sense of sharing a live experience is lost, decreasing intimacy. Additionally, Florian Hoof argues liveness is extra valuable for sports events, as the value of sports footage has “diminished greatly after the final score is known” (88). Lastly, even in this stability, it can be a puzzling search to find a broadcast with specific commentators. While watching certain television shows ensures viewers of certain personae, the constant unpredictable alternating of commentators between events, channels and organizations makes them hard to locate on demand.

There is thus a crucial difference between the regularity and predictability of traditional television personae and online commentator personae. The same commentators do return within the community of one game leading to repeated exposure. However the events and the presence of specific commentators are irregular and unpredictable. Whereas television personae appear according to an organized schedule, eSports lack such a fixed, regular schedule. The development of a parasocial relationship is more fragile than in traditional organized televisual contexts. Viewers can no longer depend upon a single source for regular exposure to the persona, but have to spread their attention across multiple websites to ensure predictability and stability. However, other websites also become spaces wherepersonae can create a social presence outside of their mere Twitch appearances. These are described by Giles as “other appearances”, like interviews, magazines or other television programs, which he argues are relevant contextual elements contributing to parasocial relationships (297). These appearances, according to Giles, sustain an ongoing relationship, reinforcing authenticity and attraction (297). These encounters outside of Twitch, especially on social media platforms, and their potential role in creating stability, regularity and authenticity, are explored in the upcoming paragraph.

2.5 Other Encounters Many commentators own profiles on Twitch, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, where they post updates on both their professional and personal lives. Announcements of broadcasts and URLs to the right channels are posted, facilitating easier access to information on eSports events and repeated encounters with the commentators. Additionally, social media profiles give insight into their personality, confirming existing perceptions and offering new information on their “backstage behavior[sic]” (Auter 176). This backstage behaviour is revealed as sides of their personality, invisible in the regular Twitch encounter, appear, establishing the persona as a fully rounded, authentic human being, necessary for an intimate connection(Auter 176). Commentator Henry Greer often posts personal updates on Twitter to which other commentators, Alex “Machine” Richardson and Jason “Moses” O'Toole, reply (image 2.5). This confirms the friendship they also portray during tournaments. Through jokes and personal anecdotes, intimacy and authenticity increase, as viewers may feel they are growing closer to the persona and getting to know them better. It seems the social media profile itself becomes a stable and predictable encounter, where intimate relationships appear as users gain access to the “veridical self”, “the real person behind the projected self that is offered for public consumption” (Barry 254). However, when maintaining an online profile, people construct their identity, consciously differentiating between public and private information. Though spectators may feel like they truly know their commentators, in reality

17 they are faced with a constructed balance between public and private, professional and personal (Marwick and boyd 128). It might then be argued it is not “backstage” behaviour that appears on these platforms, as awareness of their audience and active construction of an online personality turns these expressions into a part of their performance as persona too.

Image 2.5 Screenshot, 20 June 2017, .

Social media accounts prove there is a real person behind the persona, thereby not only establishing authenticity, but also the possibility for future contact (Hartmann 185). Hartmann argues the “general possibility for contact with a character enhances social involvement” (Hartmann 191). Similarly, Giles emphasizes the “potential relationship between interactants” influences the parasocial relationship (293). Some conceptualizations of the parasocial assume all viewers wish to develop their parasocial relationship towards the social, actively pursuing reciprocal interaction with a persona. This is not necessarily true, as the mere potential for contact with an authentic persona might be sufficient for a great amount of users. This has also been shown by Thorson and Rodgers, who research how users value and perceive the interactivity of political weblogs and conclude “perceptions of the opportunity to interact may be sufficient”, “regardless of whether they make use of the interactive features” (41). It is thus not necessary for users to engage with these interactive, social options, as the mere possibility to do so might be a valuable addition to the parasocial relationship.

However, it cannot be denied social media have considerably lowered barriers for attempting to establishsocial contact (Tsiotsou 402). Previously, a small number of people sent letters to their favourite personae, but showing appreciation or opinions and hoping for replies is significantly easier now (Horton and Wohl 383). While the potential for contact is rarely fulfilled with popular commentators who have massive lists of followers, commentators do respond to messages in certain cases, thereby creating a reciprocal situation. Reciprocity traditionally does not fit within a parasocial relationship, as it is often considered inherently social rather than parasocial. However, Hartmann rightfully argues reciprocity is not the essence of the distinction between social versus parasocial, as reciprocal contact might still contain parasocial elements (182-3). Perceived distance between viewer and commentator, while significantly decreased, remains rather great due to great anonymity and minimal potential for further developing a mutual social relationship (Hartmann 184). By emphasizing this perceived distance rather than reciprocity, it becomes clear

18 that these reciprocal, social settings can still be considered within a parasocial framework, proving reciprocal and parasocial do not exclude each other, but can become intertwined (Hartmann 184).

This paragraph shows social media profiles are responsible for ensuring predictable, stable and regular exposure to the persona on Twitch, as they are used for information on upcoming Twitch encounters. Additionally, they become stable, constantly accessible encounters of themselves as well where intimacy and authenticity are established. Whereas “other encounters” are often considered secondary and subordinate in traditional accounts of parasocial interaction, social media profiles of commentators take on a prominent role. Commentators cannot be isolated to a singular platform, but have to be understood in their online, cross-media context. This also means it is difficult to separate between backstage behaviour and primary performances, as social media profiles and expressions become part of the persona’s performance. Simultaneously, this online context increases the potential for social interactivity and reciprocal contact with commentators, which makes it harder to distinguish betweensocial and parasocial interaction. Strategies for social contact are employed within parasocial relationships, while commentators employ parasocial strategies on social websites. The line between the two categories blurs and the relationship between viewer and commentatordoes not fit within one definitive category.

2.6 Conclusions In this chapter, a lot of similarities between Twitch’s broadcasting of live events and traditional television broadcasting appeared, as direct address, attraction and intimacy return as important factors in simulating conversation between viewer and persona, allowing viewers to feel like they become part of an intimate interaction and relationship with the commentator. This chapter has thus established a parasocial interaction between viewers and commentators, providing a good basis for my further analysis into the parasocial on Twitch. Some tensions appeared surrounding the role of certain social, contextual features that will be taken up further in upcoming chapters. A first concern is the online co-viewer, who balances between sustaining and disturbing parasocial interaction. While co-viewers can stimulate parasocial engagement and bonds, massive audience sizes decrease intimacy and felt mutual attention and awareness.

The parasocial relationship develops with repeated exposure, increasing authenticity, intimacy, affinity and attraction, similar to traditional theories. However, a second tension appears surrounding the fixed schedule according to which repeated exposure takes place in traditional mass media settings, which is largely absent on Twitch. The commentator is less predictable and fixed, increasing uncertainty and instability, meaningviewers have to access other websites for information and announcements. Social media accounts of commentators can facilitate and inform viewers on these future encounters, while simultaneously becoming stable encounters of themselves. Thus, even in a setting similar to television broadcast settings, online contextual elements are important to take into account, as both the contextual “other user” and the contextual “other encounter” become a prominent part of the relationship.

Another tension surfaces as the existence of social features contributes to the parasocial experience. The existence of the socially interactive chat room within Twitch stimulates connecting and responding to the commentator, while social media accounts outside of Twitch facilitate potential reciprocal contact. This chapter shows how reciprocity can still be understood within a parasocial framework, as perceived distance is rather great. However, these added possibilities for actual contact do affect the parasocial relationship between viewer and commentator and significantly blur the lines between what is social and what is parasocial. The balance between the social and the parasocial is inherently different from the parasocial relationships in televisual environments due to the added interactive, reciprocal features. While this chapter thus establishes the social features of Twitch indeed affect the parasocial relationships that appear, the tensions that surfaced warrant further exploration. In order to do so, the next chapter will analyze the personal live-streamer, in contrast to the eSports as impersonal live-streams, and its interactive and inherently social, reciprocal chat room (Karhulahti 1).

Chapter 3. Streamers

3.1 Introduction In the previous chapter, commentators displayed similarities with traditional television personae in establishing a parasocial relationship. However, it also became clear the online context and social features cannot be ignored as tensions surrounding the constantly present co-viewer and the possibility for reciprocity in cross-media encounters appeared. When analyzing these social features, the distinctions between social and parasocial blur. The interesting mix between social and parasocial that appeared in previous chapter has made it important to further explore the tensions surrounding reciprocity within a parasocial framework. To do so, this chapter analyzes the relationship between viewers and individual streamers as personae. Whereas commentators are impersonal live-streamers, working for organizations who own the channel, individual gamers are personal live-streamerswho own their channel and chat room (Karhulahti 1). These streamers thereby are in constant position to reciprocate their viewers, constituting a perfect setting to explore the dynamics between parasocial and social, and the blurring lines between them.

Twitch consists of “more than 2 million streamers” spectated by “close to 10 million visitors” (About Twitch). Research by Katyoue et al. shows an average stream duration of 96 minutes and an average of 23 viewers per stream, but they emphasize viewership is very skewed as “the top 10% streamers concentrate 95% of all views”, while many streams have no or very little viewers (1183). There are multiple ways for users to browse through live channels. Firstly, the left side of the screen displays all “followed channels” and whether these are currently live (image 3.1). Other than that, users can browse through all live channels sorted on popularity, filtered per game, or filtered per “community” (image 3.1). These communities are user-created collections of “specific types of broadcast [...], based on skill or gameplay reasons” (Karsevar). Communities like “CompetitiveOW” (Competitive Overwatch), “Speedrunning” and “Chill-Streams” connect styles of playing and interacting with audiences. These categories can be related to the three categories Smith, Obrist and Wright use to divide the video game live-streaming community’s content, namely eSports, speedrunning and “Let’s Play” (131). ESports are competitive multiplayer games, speedrunning is a single-player mode with the goal to finish the game as quickly as possible, and “Let’s Play” is more casual and “chill”, allowing for more relaxed atmospheres and casual conversations.Visual styles, narratives and iconographies within games are bases for the “Horror” and “Anime” communities. Users also assign streams to categories like role-playing games (RPG), first-person shooters (FPS) or turn-based games (TBG). These relate to the “mode” of the game itself; the “spatial and temporal arrangements” that structure gameplay and flow (Apperley 10). Notably, consoles do not seem to affect categorization, as “Pokémon” and “Zelda” communities exemplify, which are franchises with games across multiple consoles. Another last categorization appears in communities based upon common languages, like “VarietyDE” (German) and “Japan_Stream”, or other preferred communicative style, such as the “Positivity” community where negative or mean comments are prohibited. Communities are thus very diverse and based on iconographic or visual genres, ludic or interactive genres, and communicative or social elements that are part of the meta-game or contexts surrounding the game (Wolf 113).

Image 3.1 Screenshot, 20 June 2017, . 20

Streamers include gameplay and -sound, but often also embed webcam footage and audio in their video to communicate with viewers (Hamilton, Garretson and Kerne 1315-6) (image 3.2). While commentators disappear from sight during matches, the webcam feed of streamers remains visible. Individual streamers often play in their own living rooms or bedrooms, which creates an intimate and personal experience for viewers who are invited into these private spaces in real time (Creeber 596).When visiting a streamer’s channel, either the currently live broadcast immediately starts playing or the most recent stream appears (image 3.3). Below the video, a profile contains additional information like social media accounts, FAQ, chat rules and sponsors. Additionally, each channel has a directly visible chat room right next to the video where real time messages appear immediately. Viewers can choose to hide or include the chat in full screen mode (image 3.2) via two separate buttons. At the top of the profile, viewers can access all past broadcasts by clicking “videos” (image 3.3). When viewing an archived broadcast, chat messages as they were during the broadcast appear in the chat room, removing the real time chat from sight. While it was previously impossible to participate in archived chats, Twitch is developing features for commenting on archived videos too (McInnis). Additionally, all channels have a “follow”-button and a small amount of channels have a “subscription”-button (image 3.3). Subscribing gives viewers certain privileges on that channel for $4,99 a month, which is split evenly among the streamer and Twitch. Subscribing is only possible on “partnered” channels, about 17.000 of the total 2 million streamers (Partner FAQ). It has to be noted this number includes the eSports organizations that often also hold a partnered status. Everyone can apply for partnership, but Twitch’s selection procedure demands an “established and steadily growing audience and chat”, and a “regular schedule of at least 3 times a week” (Partner Application).

Image 3.2 Screenshot, 8 June 2017, .

Image 3.3 Screenshot, 14 June 2017, .

The many interactive features that appear in this encounter between viewers and streamers, such as chatting, following, subscribing, makes it interesting to analyze how parasocial and social elements are intertwined in these reciprocal settings. To do so, the first paragraph focuses on analyzing textual elements that have been connected to establishing a parasocial encounter in previous chapter: direct address, authenticity, intimacy and attraction. Due to the reciprocal setting and the multitude of social features, an interesting, new persona appears compared to the

21 commentator and traditional personae. Thereafter, the possibilities for developing a parasocial relationship are explored, showing how social features, either offered by Twitch or contextual elements, alter the nature of the relationship. The last paragraph analyzes behaviours of those viewers choosing to remain distant. While Twitch allows viewers to decrease perceived distance with a variety of social features, new values seem to appear from increased perceived distance in passivity or massiveness. This chapter’s structure is similar to previous chapter, allowing comparisons between the two personae to be made. The biggest differences are due to increased reciprocity, which allows me to analyze whether and how viewers respond to interactive features.

3.2 Encountering the Streamer When first joining a stream, viewers arrive in a live, face-to-face situation with streamers in their own private spaces (image 3.2), establishing a sense of intimacy and immediacy (Hamilton, Garretson, Kerne 1315-6; Creeber 596). Some streamers will actively welcome individual viewers joining the broadcast, especially in small streams where it is possible to greet everyone separately (Hamilton, Garretson and Kerne 1320). During DrGluon’s stream, 31 March 2017, MissBeccaB sends a greeting message to which DrGluon replies “hello MissBecca, how you doing?”, addressing them by name and acknowledging their presence (http://twitch.tv/videos/132160864). When MissBeccaB messages “I’m okay thank you, feeling kind of poorly but I’ll be okay, how are you?”, DrGluon responds by saying sorry that they are feeling bad. Here, a reciprocal situation appears that might contain both social and parasocial elements, as this is a social interaction where perceived distance might still be rather great due to great physical distance and anonymity (Hartmann 186). While individual interactions can appear in certain broadcasts, not all streamers establish reciprocity with individual audience members, either because they choose not to or because their gameplay or audience size does not allow them to. Interestingly, gaming styles and audience sizes do not affect commentators’ modes of address, but do affect the personal live- streamer and their streaming style. With casual games, constant interaction with the chat is easily achieved as these relaxed styles allows gamers to constantly alter between interacting with audiences and playing the game, which Karhulahti refers toas the “switch between interview frames and play frames” (Karhulahti 2). Online, multi-player competitive games demand full focus and attention for longer periods of time, making it difficult to quickly alternate between these frames. For example, Wintergaming is playing StarCraft, 30 March 2017, performing towards his audiences, thereby displaying awareness in explaining his gameplay, but not interacting with them (https://twitch.tv/videos/132181341). Additionally, when viewership grows, it becomes impossible to respond to all messages as they quickly succeed and replace each other. Some streamers greet and directly address the entire chat room with “viewers”, “chat”, “you”, “y’all”, or other general terms. While individual interaction is not established here, viewers might still feel invited and welcomed into the stream via this direct address and form of simulated mutual awareness. Some streamers only pick messages they find interesting, for example when one viewer asks about GoldGlove’s length, 4 April 2017. GoldGlove answers he is 6’3’’, while many other simultaneously sent messages are unreciprocated (http://twitch.tv/videos/133303974). This creates a felt reciprocity, even when not all individuals are actively part of this individual social interaction. However, the mere potential for reciprocity includes all viewers in a sense of mutual awareness, thereby establishing a simulacrum of interaction (Hartmann 181). Again, a social interaction within Twitch’s social features becomes part of the parasocial, blurring the lines between them and connecting them within one experience.

Not all streamers include a webcam, as exemplified by Nightblue3, who nevertheless has an impressive amount of almost 2 million followers (https://twitch.tv/nightblue3). AnnieBot is another example of a streamer who has always kept his face hidden from his audiences (https://twitch.tv/anniebot). Hiding one’s face is mostly impossible and unacceptable for most television personae and commentators, but streamers are apparently less subject to these expectations. Additionally, whereas commentators and some streamers alternate between using nicknames and real names, there are examples of streamers who keep their true name entirely hidden, such DrGluon who is addressed as DrGluon, Doc, or Glu by his viewers. Apparently, the expectations surrounding authenticity are significantly different for streamers compared to commentators and traditional television personae as described by many researchers, who are

22 generally expected to openly share their names and faces. However, Horton and Wohl do describe radio personae as possible figures for parasocial interaction too, establishing the possibility of parasocial relationships based on merely vocal cues (381). While this possibility is not adequately explored by later researchers, Hartmann in 2008 argues “a character’s behavior[sic] seems to be more important than its outer appearance”, arguing cartoon figures, game characters and sketched avatars are also possible personae as long as their behaviour is sufficiently authentic (189, 192). Both DrGluon and Nightblue3 instead find different ways to establish this sufficient perceived authenticity, proving they are humans who“might possibly exist in real life” (Hartmann 187). DrGluon hides his name, but includes a webcam showing his face and allowing him to bodily address his audiences in an engaging, intimate and personal way, displaying his sense of humour and personal interest in his viewers, thereby indeed establishing himself as an authentic, caring human being despite the lack of a name. Nightblue3 displays intense emotional responses, screams, enthusiasm or surprise, similar to vocal cues by commentators, adding to authenticity by making him an engaged human being with emotions. These cues for establishing personality and authenticity are commonly used by many streamers. Additionally, streamers can use social media profiles to establish authenticity and personality, which is explored in a later paragraph.

An interesting side note here is all viewers can remain entirely face- and nameless, similar to spectators in traditional television settings, creating great anonymity at the side of the viewer. The inequality between viewer and streamer, resulting from integrating the televisual one-to-many setting, means not all participants are subjected to the same expectations.Internet has often been considered an equalizing medium with its many-to-many communications, but Twitch combines this potential with a one-to-many situation where a single individual becomes the centre of communication. This inequality between participants is also reflected in the different means of communication. Streamers guide the conversations and can articulate themselves in a wide range of vocal and facial expressions, as well as chat within the chat room, while viewers merely have access to text and fixed Emotes. Twitch users seem to have developed an elaborate and complicated language with ambiguous Emotes and vocabulary in order to still communicate as efficiently as possible despite these inequalities. This elaborate language system and other possible responses to this inequality are explored later.

The abovementioned strategies employed by Nightblue3, DrGluon and many other streamers, do not only contribute to authenticity and intimacy, but create social attraction too as these type of personal traits make them more friendly and likable (Rubin and McHugh 283-4). Additionally, using specific languages, values and codes, connects the viewer and streamer in their shared interests and subculture. An interesting circle appears where the promise or simulation of social interaction increases social attraction, which feeds back into the parasocial experience. Here it again becomes clear how the social and parasocial are connected and lines between them are not always easily drawn. Task attraction is especially relevant for those viewers focused on learning new gaming skills, as skilled streamers display and teach their knowledge, problem-solving abilities and new tricks (Rubin and McHugh 283-4; Georgen, Duncan and Cook 581-2; Auter and Palmgreen 82-3). Task and social attraction are balanced according to what individual users wish to emphasize, also varying along with gameplay. Competitive games tend to focus on winning, levelling, developingand displaying skills, and thereby lend themselves for displaying task attraction. More casual forms of gameplay, “Let’s Play” or “Chill-Streams”, focus on creating fun or adventurous stories, increasing importance of social attraction (Smith, Obrist and Wright 132-3). Different modes thus emphasize different sides of the streamer, foregrounding either social or task attraction. Interestingly, physical attraction shows gender differences that are not accounted for in by Rubin and McHugh’s analysis of attraction. In 1987, they question 303 American students on their favourite television performer without registering the distribution of gender among these performers. Horton and Wohl, however, do describe physical and sexual attractiveness for female personae, which nevertheless was never adequately included in later theories (381-2). In 2017, Mia Consalvo explores Twitch player identities, also mentioning the majority of streamers are male and female streamers commonly take the role of sexual “gamer girl” (86). Consalvo exemplifies this with Kaceytron, a female “boob streamer” who is not necessarily a skilled gamer, but “wears low cut shirts to gain viewers” (86). There are many examples of female Twitch-

23 streamersemphasizing their bodies and physical appearances in streams consisting of footage in their bed rooms while wearing little clothes and lots of make-up, primarily focussing on interaction with the chat (https://twitch.tv/lilchiipmunk;https://twitch.tv/belissalovely). Different markers of attraction are emphasized here, primarily physical, then social, creating a different connection than most male streamers do. Not all female Twitch-streamers fit this description, but the existence of “boob streamers” suggests a difference between female and male personae which needs further research, on Twitch as well as in televisual contexts, as it might prove to be an element that significantly alters parasocial interaction.

The streamer persona is significantly different from commentators or traditional television personae in altered authenticity, attraction and hierarchy. A traditional form of parasocial interaction may appear via employment of direct address and establishing a sense of mutual awareness, friendship and intimacy. However, this parasocial interaction is significantly altered by social features, audience sizes and gameplay. Social interactions between streamers and viewers often contain parasocial elements, while simultaneously, the constant potential for social interactions feeds into the parasocial experience, making streamers more attractive. This reinforces the idea that the social and the parasocial are starting to blur and lines between them are not clearly drawn. The lines between these only blur further when exploring the possibilities for decreasing perceived distance via certain social features offered by Twitch. The complicated rolethese play in the development of parasocial relationships are explored in the upcoming paragraph.

3.3 Developing a Relationship Twitch offers viewers multiple social features that allow users to establish a more intimate connection to streamers and decrease perceived distance between them. Firstly, it is possible to “follow” streamers, providing easier access and notifications of new videos and live broadcasts, thereby facilitating repeated encounters that reduce uncertainty and increase intimacy (Rubin and McHugh 283-4). Some streamers might follow back or add their followers as friends allowing for individual reciprocity. This is unlikely with popular streamers with hundreds or thousands of followers. These massive channels can become Twitch “partners”, affording them the “subscribe”- button. Subscribers pay a monthly fee of $4,99in return for varying privileges, often aimed at increasing the illusion of a special, intimate bond, allowing them to feel differentiated from nonsubscribers. Common examples of subscription benefits are access to subscriber-only chats, special Emotes giving subscribers unique visual ways to express themselves, and “badges” that appear besides chat names to visibly differentiate subscribers from nonsubscribers. Some streamers also differentiate between subscribers, giving different badges based on the amount of months they subscribe for. Many streamers promise their subscribers more individual recognition by displaying names in the video or on the channel, increasing felt mutual awareness. A typical example of this is Sodapoppin’s “Hall of Fame” where he lists viewers who donate the highest amounts of money, again displaying a hierarchy between subscribers (http://twitch.tv/sodapoppin). GoldGlove displays subscribers’ names in the bottom left corner of his video and thanks them directly the moment they subscribe, like he does 4 April 2017,saying “DanStartsFires, thank you so much for the three month resub, welcome back, bro-ski”, “Super_Saiyan_Blastoise, thank you so much, buddy”, “BaileyBaggins and ZekAttack, thank you guys so much for the resub, welcome back, you beautiful bastards”, (https://twitch.tv/videos/133303974). He verbally addresses subscribers, recognizing returning subscribers (“resub”) and calling them friendly names like “buddy” and “bro”, thereby acknowledging shared history and simulating mutual awareness. In November 2016, Twitch introduced another feature for differentiating from others by “Pinned Cheers” (Fontaine). By buying Bits, costing about $0,01 per Bit, viewers can send “Cheermotes” in the chat. The cheapest Cheermote costs 1 Bit, ranging up to Cheermotes costing 10.000 Bits. According to Twitch’s blog, Cheermotes “let your message be heard above the roar of the crowd”, thereby displaying unique engagement and dedication towards streamers (Fontaine). The “Top Cheer”, the most expensive one, will be “pinned” publically at the top of that chat room until someone sends a costlier Cheer turning the display of intimacy into a competition.

These abovementioned features offered by Twitch focus on decreasing distance and increasing

24 intimacy, importance and attraction of the relationship in three different ways: ensuring and facilitating repeated exposure, enforcing mutual awareness, and differentiating from other viewers. The fact that viewers are willing to pay money for fulfilling these social needs shows an interesting process of commodification. Especially in massive streams, where distances and inequality increase, viewers purchase decreased distance. However, the fact that one participant earns money directly from this relationship actually further increases the inequality between them. An additional layer of gamification appears, as intimacy becomes a competition and only the highest bidders are allowed into this individual intimacy. This interesting new phenomenon can be related to the fact co-viewers are more visible than they are in traditional settings. This increased visibility and constant confrontation, as also argued in the previous chapter, turns co-viewers into distractions or even threats as they compete for individual attention of the streamer. This increases the need to differentiate from other users via commodification. Twitch allows these processes to affect and structureviewers’ behaviours, as they profit of this themselves as well. Their profit model, based on commercialization and commodification of the parasocial, is thus an important structuring feature of user behaviours. This is not entirely new, as institutionalized television personae depend on consistently high viewership and returning viewers for their profits too. However, traditional television personae and commentators are not paid directly by their audiences but instead by the organization they work for. The social features offered by Twitch for developing these parasocial relationships guide user behaviours in such a way that both Twitch and the streamers can profit, meaning the parasocial becomes a beneficial strategy for the streamer too. The context of my analysis does not allow me to dive deeper into this subject, but I believe future research combining political economy with the parasocial might provide interesting new insights into the role commercialization plays within the parasocial.

Image 3.4 Screenshots, 4 April 2017, .

Twitch’s options for following and subscribing facilitate repeated encounters, among other things, which can help develop the relationship through uncertainty reduction and increased intimacy, attraction and authenticity. However, while these features ensure notifications on new broadcasts or videos, Twitch does not offer any features to ensure predictability in the form of a guide, announcements or schedule. This means, similar to previous chapter, predictable, stable personae that can be “counted on, planned for” are harder to establish on Twitch (Horton and Wohl 375). However, partnered streamers can be expected to provide individual information on upcoming streams on their profiles as individual regularity is demanded for entering into a Twitch partnership. Some streamers offer detailed itineraries, while others display general days and times they can roughly be expected to stream. Many streamers use their connected Twitter profiles for updates and exact announcements on upcoming live-streams. Joshua “Steel” Nissan first lets his viewers know he will be streaming after dinner and places a next update when he is actually starting his stream, givingviewers multiple possibilities to join him during his streaming session, provided that they also have a Twitter account and follow him on that platform as well (image 3.4). Here, Twitch’s unpredictability and lack of central guide is again compensated for by contextual other encounters where viewers employ other websites for predictability. When viewers missed a broadcast, the entire video is available on their Twitch channel, along with archived chat messages. These archived encounters are more stable than archives of eSports commentators, as streamers own their channels,while commentators appear across various channels.However, 25 when watching these archived videos, the viewer is no longer part of the live event, decreasing intimacy between viewer and persona, making this encounter less valuable than a live one (Wohn and Na). Many streamers additionally upload montages of their streams on YouTube, compiling highlights with added visual and sound effects. Nightblue3 uploads montages on YouTube where he collects highlights of his daily streaming sessions (https://youtube.com/user/Nightblue3). Those who missed the live-stream can remain up to date without watching entire broadcasts, often lasting multiple hours. These repeated encounters also increase social attraction and authenticity, by adding music or visual effects that display humour, personality, or self-commentary. When NightBlue3’s character dies, he often adds sad piano music and rain effects. He also uses returning, recognizable sound effects, like a voice saying “nope” or evil laughter taken from Thriller by Michael Jackson, that are used as humorous or ironic commentary. Nightblue3 also adds an animated “Nightblue webcam” at certain points, Image 3.5 Screenshot, 20 June 2017, showing cartoon facial expressions, thereby . displaying ironic self-awareness and commenting on his own exclusion of a webcam (image 3.5).

Other than gaming content, streamers often use social media profiles for personal content too, further reinforcing authenticity, intimacy and attraction.By inviting viewers to their accounts on Twitter and YouTube, and sometimes also on Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat or Reddit, streamers establish a cross-media personality with similar names or nicknames. Other than facilitating Twitch encounters, these profiles thus becomestable encounters of themselves as well where personalityand backstage behaviours appear. Dyrus for example, uses his YouTube channel for both gaming content videos and “vlogs”, videos that show “behind-the-scenes” or “document everyday routines” (Berryman and Kavka 310). In a cooking video, 30 March 2017, Dyrus displays a sense of humour by parodying traditional cooking shows. He is in his own kitchen with his girlfriend, displaying backstage spaces, relationships and behaviours, thereby increasing intimacy and sense of friendship(https://youtu.be/fgbYk__QUUo). While television performers establish their persona in their primary performance on television within a specific timeslot, streamer personae are less fixed and less predictable in their main encounter, where they are additionally allowed to remain relatively anonymous compared to traditional personae. This unpredictability and anonymity is compensated for by a multiplicity of possible other encounters, as they are expected to be constantly available on a variety of platforms. This elaborate online presence and multiplicity of encounters means they have to constantly manage how they address their audiences, attempting to balance public, “frontstage” and private, backstage performances within and between platforms (Marwick and boyd 123). The difference between backstage and “frontstage” is increasingly blurring, similar to previous chapter, as all platforms become part of their performance as cross-media personae.

This paragraph shows how features offered by Twitch, but also strategies outside of Twitch, alter perceived distance and intimacy between viewer and streamer. Firstly, certain features offered by Twitch result in processes of commodification as perceived intimacy is purchased by viewers who feel threatened in reciprocal settings with great audience sizes. Secondly, an increased dependence on cross-media appearances appears, as social media platforms not only facilitate repeated encounters but become increasingly important in establish a cross-media personality. This is a further extension of the argument made in previous chapter, as personae increasingly become cross-media phenomena. Whereas relationships with traditional television persona develop via repeated encounters, a variety of social features and strategies have entered the parasocial relationship in this paragraph, constantly altering perceived distances and intimacy and further blurring the lines between social and parasocial. It is important to remember not all viewers employ these strategies aimed at decreasing distance. Massive settings and passive users form a major part of Twitch usage, where perceived distance is great and individual connections play a minimal role. The next paragraph will explore these ‘anti’-social behaviours within Twitch’s social

26 contextfrom a parasocial point of view.

3.4 Values of ‘Anti’-Social Behaviour In massive settings, the chat often cheers the streamer on via simple, short expressions or visual Emotes. For example, after GoldGlove wins a match, all spectators simultaneously send the same Emote in a collaborative, visual support towards the streamer (image 3.6). Some streamers stimulate these crowd behaviours, like Nightblue3 asking his chat to support him during a tense moment by all sending question marks (image 3.7). When he eventually wins, he claims “we did it, let me see it, chat”, leading to the chat overflowing with excited Emotes. He uses “chat”, addressing his audience as one entirety, rather than as individuals. The “we did it” shows an inclusion and appreciation for the support he received, which allows viewers to feel included in the event. These massive chats thus lead to a “crowd” experience, similar to how sports audiences sings songs or chants in a sports arena, where everyone is participating in a mutual, common response (Cheung and Huang 768). These crowd expressions connect the viewer to the streamer, as viewers feel their behaviour is integrated and appreciated, especially if this behaviour is stimulated by the streamer. However, these expressions might also be argued to be partof the relationship between viewers which will be explored in the next chapter.

Image 3.6 Screenshot, 4 April 2017, . Image 3.7 Screenshot, 6 April 2017, .

Additionally, massiveness can be made productive in playful ways. While individual advice or input is hard to integrate in massive streams, streamers sometimes initiate polls via external websites

27 asking the audience what games or gaming styles to play next, which maps to play or where to go, or what characters or artefacts to use. (http://streampoll.tv/u/alsrandomkill,http://streampoll.tv/u/tinner10tin,http://strawpoll.me/3797515,htt p://streampoll.tv/u/radiatedearth). This establishes a form of “collaborative play” between viewers and streamers, giving viewers a sense of individual influence on the streamer (Georgen, Duncan and Cook 584).These collaborative playful values can be extended further to passive viewers, following the argument made by Thorson and Rodgers. In their research of how users value and perceive the interactivity of weblogs, they conclude “perceptions of the opportunity to interact may be sufficient”, “regardless of whether they make use of the interactive features” (41). This means the mere potential for or perception of reciprocity or interaction might be sufficient in sustaining the parasocial relationship and the simulacrum of interaction, mutual awareness and intimacy, regardless of whether viewers actively engage with these interactive options (41)

Viewers and streamers are subjected to different expectations concerning authenticity versus anonymity. Whereas streamers are expected to establish themselves as authentic human beings on Twitch or via other encounters, viewers do not display any private information. As audience size grows, viewers become even more anonymous with increased perceived distance (Hartmann 185). While viewers can be held accountable for their behaviours in smaller chats, expressions become harder to moderate in massive settings. By remaining passive, streamers and moderators become entirely ineffective and unaware of behaviours, even if streamers do wish to establish a mutual relationship with their viewers. Viewers thus gain a more active role in the nature of the relationship as they are presented with multiple options of whether and how to engage with the streamer, meaning passiveness becomes an active choice that displays agency. The asymmetry and inequality between viewer and streamer thus leaves space for anonymity and agency where “users can select from an abundant choice of response roles that they can enact playfully” (Hartmann 182-3). According to Hartmann, this playfulness is an essential value of parasocial interaction, also in traditional settings, as the one-sidedness of the relationship means there are no consequences to behaviours (Hartmann 182-3). In traditional mass media settings, audiences are guided and “coached” into the correct “role of the audience”, refusing these roles means turning off the television, changing channels or not watching the persona again (Horton and Wohl 376-7). In current media environments, the refusal and experimenting with roles becomes more active and visible in the reciprocity of the chat room, increasing agency and enhancing values viewers gain from these behaviours (Hartmann 182-3).This might not be perceived by everyone as a positive phenomenon, as exploring the boundaries of social roles and rules can result in “trolling”, spam and other forms of “toxic” behaviour (Karhulahti 1-2; Consalvo 86). The result is not always a meaningful conversation, yet, these individual playful values are indeed essential to the parasocial experience (Hartmann 182).

This paragraph shows parasocial relationships based on ‘anti’-social, or socially distant, behaviours have communal, social, playful and crowd values in massive streams or for passive viewers. The social contexts of Twitch thus provide an interesting space for these types of behaviours, even though Twitch itself seems to emphasize the possibility for social interaction. I wish to emphasize that when describing these passive or massive behaviours, they should not be considered nugatory experience, as it is shown to be an active and valid choice which expresses agency (Georgen, Duncan and Cook 581).

3.5 Conclusions This chapter explored the relationship between viewers and streamers. While interactive and reciprocal features are offered by Twitch, parasocial interactions do appear within these social contexts. However, the streamer personae is significantly different in terms of attraction, authenticity and the nature of the relationship is altered by Twitch’s social features, audience sizes and gameplay.Small streams may establish social interactions, but increased audience sizes often mean parasocial elements enter the relationship.Perceived distance increases, but viewers feel addressed personally via simulations of direct address, mutual awareness, and intimacy, thereby establishing perceived authenticity, intimacy and attraction. Some viewers will actively attempt to decrease distance and increase intimacy through chatting, following, subscribing, 28

Cheers, or cross-media approaches. Others are sufficiently satisfied in passive or massive settings, and the parasocial framework has shed new light on the new playful, social or communal needs that emerge from these behaviours. Additionally, viewers gain agency as they can influence their role within the relationship in ways traditional television spectators may not.

Despite increased agency, there is still a notable asymmetry in the parasocial relationship between viewer and streamer which results from integrating the broadcast setting into the online environment.While online environments are often symmetrical many-to-many communications, Twitch streamers hold a central hierarchical position within a one-to-many broadcast setting. This is additionally reflected in processes of commodification, where viewers differentiate from each other by buying privileges that enhance a sense of intimacy towards the central streamer, while the streamer profits from these purchases. The need to differentiate originates from the constant threatening presence of other viewers. The visibility of the co-viewer was initially considered a sustaining contextual factor, but now increasingly threatens the parasocial relationship and by doing so affects user behaviours within the relationship.

This asymmetry simultaneously allows viewers to remain anonymous and take on playful attitudes, essential for the parasocial experience, while streamers are expected to establish sufficient authenticity, regularity and personality. Traditional personae, and the commentators of previous chapter too, are generally expected to be fully authentic and open in their main encounter. This expectation seems to be less prominent for streamers, but they do simultaneously seem to have other expectations to compensate for this on their additional social media profiles. While traditional television personae appear within a fixed time slot on a singular platform, the online persona is initially less fixed. The streamer’s identity is now constructed across a variety of platforms, essential for establishing stable and predictable repeated encounters and becoming a fully authentic, living human being. The constant balance of privacy versus authenticity raises questions on whether the “backstage behaviours” displayed on social media platforms become part of their performance as personae too, as they increasingly become cross-media phenomena.

In this chapter, identifying and analyzing parasocial interaction created new insights into the way social contexts on Twitch, and outside of Twitch, affect the parasocial. However, it became increasingly difficult to consider a singular encounter as either social or parasocial due to the constant dynamic shifts in perceived distance and cross-media approaches. Additionally, all encounters bring with them values, either social or parasocial or a dynamic hybrid combination of these two. This leads me to believe that it might be more productive to use social and parasocial as analytical frameworks, rather than as descriptions of behaviours or relationships. By using these concepts as frameworks rather than as descriptions, behaviours can be understood more comprehensively as multiple contradicting elements might appear simultaneously.The last chapter will focus on a tension that has consistently returned over the past two chapters, namely the online co-viewers who affect behaviours in parasocial relationships, simultaneously threatening and sustaining intimacy, obstructing and enhancing social values. Additionally, certain expressions seem to be directed to other users, rather than thepersona. The way the co-viewer and its constant visibility in Twitch’s chat room affect the parasocial remains unclear, which is why the last chapter explores the mutual relationships between viewers.

Chapter 4. Viewers

4.1 Introduction In the previous chapters it became clear contextual co-viewers alter the relationships towards personae, affecting behaviour while both stimulating and threatening the relationship. A recurring question has been whether certain behaviours are directed towards other viewers rather than the new media performers. The relationship between viewers is subject of this chapter, exploringlive chat rooms with special focus on massive streams. Here, an especially tricky combination of social and parasocial appears as reciprocity occurs between multiple viewers. Twitch audiences show similarities to the traditional television spectator, as both type of audiences become connected by simultaneously watching the same broadcast content (Wohn and Na). This imaginary connection might become more explicit and amplified in Twitch’s social context, as the parasocial connection can potentially be made real through Twitch’s social features. This balance between social and parasocial, “real” and “imaginary”, connections between viewers, will be explored in this chapter.

Besides the chat room, Twitch affords individual contact too, as users can search and add Friends and send them direct personal messages called “Whispers” (Barnett). On March 10th, 2017, Twitch introduced a desktop application that allows users to create small groups of friends and communicate with them via text or voice-calls. Twitch claims “one of the best things about the Twitch community is the people you connect with on your journey”, “we are adding new ways to build stronger and more meaningful connections between you, your friends, and your community” (Petrocelli). These introductions of new features show a self-presentation as inherently social, emphasizing communication between users. Twitch’s emphasis on socially interactive options provides an interesting comparison to tensions encountered in previous chapters, where passive users and massive, depersonalized streams appear to be prominent. While reciprocity is possible, a great amount of users engage in distant behaviours. In this chapter, these ‘anti’-social, or socially distant, behaviours in the chat room are analyzed in a parasocial framework, following the logic of Hartmann who argues increased perceived distance in reciprocal settings allow for a parasocial approach (184). This chapter explores how parasocial elements surface within Twitch’s social chat room and whether a parasocial framework helps to understand the relationships that appear.

Because this setting deviates from traditional theories significantly, it is necessary to step back to traditional parasocial interaction first. The EPSI-scale, designed by Hartmann and Goldhoorn, provides a useful basis to do so. They argue parasocial experiences are based on “felt reciprocity with a TV performer that comprises a sense of mutual awareness, attention and adjustment” (1107). These features relate to direct address, attraction and adherence to similar norms, which are features that were analyzed when identifying parasocial interaction in previous chapters too. However, this chapter takes another step away from the traditional concept. Most theories conceptualize persona as a singular individual, while this chapter explores communication between multiple users. Hoerner introduces a more abstract and depersonalized approach to the persona in his analysis of parasocial interaction with websites (145). He claims it is necessary to escape “from the strictures of the literal definition of a persona as envisioned by Horton and Wohl”, “the Web persona has become a different creature” (Hoerner 145). His depersonalized approach makes it possible to understand Twitch’s chat community as a parasocial one, as a “simulacrum of conversational give and take” between its participants (Horton and Wohl 374). This simulacrum is established by passive users who feel addressed by the community without participating themselves, as well as users who express themselves without being reciprocated, as both can create a “felt reciprocity” (Hartmann and Goldhoorn 1107). This is consistent with observations by Wohn and Na, who suggest “people want to share their message with a group of people who have the same interest”, prioritizing a group connection over individual responses. Wohn and Na analyze Twitter behaviours during live television broadcasts, but their conclusions are relevant for Twitch too, as both platforms allow users to express themselves during a live broadcast towards an entire group. By adjusting traditional theories slightly to online settings and letting go of personae as singular individuals, this chapter analyzes whether approaching Twitch as parasocial community helps understanding behaviours.

These parasocial relationships towards the community, which I will refer to as “paracommunity”, will be explored in a structure similar to previous chapters. The first paragraph focuses on the initial features of the chat room and analyzes whether and how parasocial elements can be argued to appear by exploring essential features like direct address, attraction and mutual awareness. The second paragraph explores possibilities for uncertainty reduction via repeated encounters with the paracommunity, which proves to be significantly different from repeated exposure to a singular individual. The last paragraph explores additional values of this paracommunity and how these relate to previous chapters. This chapter shows how a paracommunitycan appear exactly by virtue of Twitch’s social features, thereby leading me into my final conclusions in answering my research question on how parasocial interaction and social contexts and features connect on Twitch.

4.2 Encountering the Community In order to analyze the relationship between viewers, this paragraph explores how traditional features of parasocial interaction can appear in the chat room. A first essential element in previous chapters was direct address, responsible for inviting viewers into a social situation, starting parasocial processes and establishing a sense of mutual awareness (Hartmann 181). While viewers are not addressed directly by individuals, like traditional direct address, they are verbally invited into engagement by the platform. Twitch constantly emphasizes its social features, which is enhanced by how they address their viewers with inviting interfaces and buttons. When joining a stream, viewers automatically receive a message“Welcome to the chat room!”, while simultaneously faced with directly addressed invitations to participate, like a “Send a message”-box and a “Chat”-button (image 4.1). After these invitations, real time messages will immediately appear, displaying the immediacy and participatory liveness of Twitch and connecting them to other viewers in real time. Here, the increased visibility of co-viewers is not a threat to the parasocial, but rather becomes essential as displaying live Image 4.4Screenshot, interactions sustains this invitation and stimulates engagement 20 June 2017, and participation. .

This type of immediate address offered by the platform itself is not unique, as many social media platforms use similar techniques for connecting viewers and maintaining relationships with them (Tsiotsou 408-9). Twitch, however, combines its real time chat with a live broadcast, which also immediately starts playing, additionally connecting its viewers in a centrally shared live event. This creates a social attraction between viewers, as they are instantly made aware of their shared hobbies, interests and values. Twitch’s interface thus not only simulates direct address and mutual awareness, but also connection and social attraction between viewers in shared events and shared liveness. In their article, Wohn and Na provide a short history of “social television systems”, showing attempts to combine live television broadcasts with spaces for synchronous communication in television services. Instead, social media platforms seemingly took up this role, as television spectators use Twitter or Facebook to express themselves, leading Wohn and Na to research Twitter expressions during live television events. Here, television provides content for social conversations, while social media provide infrastructures for these conversations (Wohn and Na). Twitch, however, successfully integrated a broadcast setting into an online environment, thereby providing both content and infrastructure for real time conversation within one platform, allowing viewers to directly express their opinions towards others who are concurrently watching the stream. The felt connectionbetween viewers in shared liveness and shared content is immediately made potentially real in the chat room, meaning Twitch’s social features enhance the parasocial connection that is initially established between viewers.

A typical example of comments on live content appears during C9Sneaky’s broadcast, May 1st 2017 (https://twitch.tv/videos/139279777).Viewers explicitly express their opinions on his music choices, using foul language and Emotes (image 4.2). This is sometimes directed to the streamer, like RoyalBuzzay saying “SKIP SKIP SKIP”,possibly hoping to convince C9Sneaky to skip this song (image 4.2). However, other comments seem to address no one in particular, but rather display opinions in general towards the entire group. Especially interesting is the comment by Jonasfeen, “SOMEONE KILL THE DJ”, which is not expressed towards, but rather about C9Sneaky (image 4.2). Additionally, viewers hardly ever respond to each other, which is consistent with Wohn and Na’s emphasis on expressing oneself towards the group over discussing or interacting with individuals. Twitter, researched by Wohn and Na, seems to be a “slower” platform than Twitch, as Twitter archives messages and they can be read and reciprocated for a longer period of time. Twitch’s messages are quickly replaced with new ones, especially in the massive streams where chat rooms become a “waterfall of text, scrolling up the page so quickly that it cannot be read” (Hamilton, Garretson and Kerne 1321). Twitch’s high speed is reflected in the multitude of acronyms and Emotes, allowing viewers to efficiently express themselves despite temporal limitations in brief, visual messages. While Twitch archives chat rooms, these archives maintain their high speed and would need to be paused regularly for reading all messages. While there are differences in Twitter and Twitch’s display and archiving of messages, Wohn and Na’s conclusions remain relevant and applicable, as this high speed only further proves individual discussions are not the goal in these communications, as this is nearly impossible to achieve in Twitch’s massive Image 4.5Screenshot, 20 June 2017, streams.Rather, the usage of the social features in . these massive settings seems to be focused on the expression of opinion and display of behaviours towards an entire group, creating a felt connection or a parasocial simulacrum of interaction.

Previous chapters show personae need to establish sufficient perceived authenticity, as viewers need to perceive the other as an authentic social being who “might possibly exist in real life” before a parasocial connection can appear (Hartmann 187).While active users or streamers generally include personal information and pictures on their channels, the majority of Twitch users have Twitch’s standard images and empty profiles, not displaying their physical bodies, personal traits or preferences. While previous chaptersshow physical bodies are not necessary for establishing a parasocial relationship, sufficient perceived authenticity needs to be established via authentic behaviours (Hartmann 187). Auter and Palmgreen argue identifiable and recognizable group interaction can also establish this authentic human interaction (82-3). On Twitch, viewers respond to each other, engage in group dynamics and participate in inside jokes, like saying “rap god” as response to commentators. This shows a group dynamic of informal and joking interaction between participants who share history, knowledge, languages, making them social and authentic

32 human beings. While individual authenticity is thus not easily established on Twitch, group behaviours can establish perceived authenticity. This sheds new light on great audience sizes and massive streams, as they become ideal settings for establishing authentic group dynamics via participation in inside jokes and crowd behaviours. Here, other viewers not threatening, but essential for establishing authentic interactions.

Twitch employs direct address in its interface, simulating mutual awareness and stimulating participation in the chat room. Social attraction and affinity are established via shared interests and subcultures, but also in a shared liveness which automatically connects viewers to each other in a live broadcast as well as a real time chat room. Observing the interactions within the chat room, however, can be just as socially satisfying as actually participating, as both engagements allow for a felt reciprocity to appear where viewers feel like they are part of an interaction with the entire group. Additionally, the communal value of the group seems to override the value of individual interactions, as expressions are not directed towards specific individuals, but in the general context of the group as a whole (Wohn and Na). It is the constant visibility of co-viewers and their massive group behaviours that establish social attraction and authenticity. The social features offered by Twitch and the ways users actively participate within these social features, are crucial for establishing parasocial interactions between its viewers.These social contextsthus become essential in these specific parasocial relationships, inherently connecting the social and the parasocial.Interestingly, physical address, physical attraction and task attraction havenot appeared in this paragraph, as bodies and skills are largely absent in the chat room and thus play no role in the initial connection. Additionally, a sense of intimacy seems to not have appeared. Previous chapters have shown how repeated encounters may increase intimacy and allow a parasocial experience to develop into a relationship. Therefore, the next paragraph will explore the possibilities for repeated exposure and how this affects the paracommunity.

4.3 Developing a Relationship On Twitch, it is hard to establish a consistent and cohesive group of returning people, which might be a problem for establishing regular, predictable repeated encounters. This might occur in small settings, where the same viewers recurrently attend the same streams and get to know each other. However, as streamers become more popular and gain more viewers, perceived distances increase as viewers become more anonymous and the group becomes less cohesive. However, when approaching Twitch as a whole, it becomes apparent how exceptionally stable and predictable repeated exposure actually is.The website itself is always accessible, except for rare cases when it is down for maintenance, and as it crosses time-zones there is virtually always someone online either streaming or chatting. Interaction or observing others interact is thus always possible, confronting viewers with reiterations of shared languages, interests, codes and values, further increasing attraction and affinity. Though the community is spread across a variety of channels, Twitch thrives on “predictable flash crowds”, meaning the location of the majority of viewers is easily anticipated (Deng et al. 6). Additionally, Twitch displays popular live-streams more prominently on the home page and in browse features, facilitating and stimulating massiveness. Despite not being a traditionally cohesive fixed group of individuals, stable encountersare achieved when the emphasis is not on individual interactions, but rather on establishing a felt connection with an entire group.

Establishing repeated exposure not only creates this connection, but, as Horton and Wohl put it, also helps viewers to feel like they “know” a persona “more profoundly than others do; that he ‘understands’ his character and appreciates his values and motives” (375). In the chat room, this knowing and understanding does not apply to a singular persona, but concerns understanding and speaking Twitch’s codes, values and languages, as Twitch has a unique and specific vocabulary that viewers have to familiarize themselves with before they can understand, or participate within, the chat room. This language is partially based on game-specific jargon, for example when referring to certain areas in LoL with “top”, “bottom” or “mid”. In CS:GO, moreambiguous references appear, with areas called “Banana”, “Catwalk”, “Heaven” or “Connector”. Without in-game knowledge, it might be difficult to deduce what is meant. As Twitch users are often gamers themselves, some might easily understand this jargon.However, even

33 when fluent in game-specific jargon, Twitch chat rooms show a unique dialect with strange associations, acronyms, grammar and spelling. For example, “girl” is often spelled “grill” on Twitch, based on a typographical error and autocorrect, which became a recurring inside joke as each time a girl appears on screen during events, the chat room will spam “grill”. These codes are not fixed to specific games, gamers or historic origins, but seem to spread independently across Twitch. New expressions can originate from the chat room, gamers, commentators or historic events and travel independently across Twitch. “VAC”, for example, refers to Valve Anti-Cheat, CS:GO’s software for detecting cheaters. Though the system originates from 2002, “VAC” became a popular expression on Twitch during a CS:GO tournament in November 2014 where multiple famous gamers were VAC-banned due to cheating and hacking practices. Now, the acronym has entered other games and gameplay, as users will send “VAC”, or variations thereof, when they think gamersare cheating during competitions, individual streams or even jokingly in casual gameplay.

Twitch language is further enriched with Emotes, designed by Twitch employees or streamers. Some of these are unambiguous, like smiling, sad or angry faces. However, other Emotes seem ambiguous or arbitrary as described by Alex Magdaleno in “’Twitch-Speak’: A Guide to the Secret Emoji Language of Gamers”. Here, the meanings and origins of some popular Emotes are explained, like the face of former Twitch employee Josh “Kappa” DeSena (image 4.3). This Emote, or saying “Kappa”, connotes sarcasm or irony. Without this background knowledge it is hard to defer Kappa’s meaning from the Emote and its usage, as it is not iconographic and does not directly display its meaning. Rather, it seems to have an assigned associative meaning. PJSalt is used as response to someone Image 4.3Twitch Emotes “being salty”, which is slang for responding unreasonably emotional or angry, making this a symbolic Emote for which one has to know this slang. ResidentSleeper displays Oddler’s face, a streamer who fell asleep during the horror game Resident Evil, seen live by 13.000 viewers. This shared history has resulted in this Emote displaying boredom. These examples show that not all Emotes have unambiguous, iconographic meanings, but can be arbitrary, symbolic or based on shared histories and knowledge. Simultaneously, just like Twitch’s textual language, Emotes keep evolving, as new Emotes appear and new meanings are assigned to them. These Emotes thereby not only function as efficient, short and visual ways for expressing oneself, but understanding them additionally establishes intimacy towards the community via their insider meanings. “If you understand the meaning of [a specific] emoticon, you are now part of the community” (Magdaleno). While Twitch languages might seem trivial, they are indeed essential for the paracommunity, as they help viewers express themselves, establish authentic group dynamics, and additionally display intimacy towards the community. Contradictory to previous chapters, massive settings are no longer oppositional or obstructive for intimacy, but rather essential for establishing an intimate paracommunity, as it is in massiveness group behaviours and languages develop and appear.

Intimacy is thus affordedto those who understand Twitch’s languages, creating an intimate connection based on dedication and shared knowledge. The flipside of this intimacy is that viewers who are not fully up to date on these codes are excluded or might be ridiculed. Here a major difference with traditional parasocialinteraction appears, where repeated encounters are indeed important and rewarded with increased sense of intimacy, but not obligatory. On Twitch, repeated encounters become a necessity for creating sufficient knowledge for engagement. This is exemplified by NightBlue3 commenting on his chat room spamming an ambiguous Emote called TriHard (image 4.3), 6 April 2017, with “you already know why they spam TriHard, I’m not gonna tell you” (https://twitch.tv/videos/133786017). By not providing meanings and explanations, this knowledge is exclusivelyfor dedicated members who somehow obtained the knowledge already, excluding viewers who do not possess the correct knowledge. Here, a form of task attraction might be argued to appear, as only those users who possess the correct knowledge are “valid” (Rubin and McHugh 285). Viewers might attempt searching archived streams to trace the origins of new

34 expressions, but Twitch’s nearly infinite content to which all gamers, commentators and viewers constantly contribute and add, makes tracing origins and keeping up with developments difficult.

Viewers again depend on cross-media encounters for further explanations, similar to how cross- media appearances were essential for reinforcing authenticity and intimacy in previous chapters. An interesting example is DailyTwitch, a YouTube-user who makes daily compilations with highlights of Twitch’s content of that day (https://youtube.com/dailytwitch). Similar to montages some streamers create, viewers do not need to watch archived broadcasts in their entirety, but can watch short videos for daily updates. Another example is TwitchEmotes, where all Emotes are listed and some explained (https://twitchemotes.com). The forum Reddit has a subpage for Twitch users, where they can ask questions on the functionality of the website, the community, and the meanings of certain expressions (https://reddit.com/r/Twitch). Other subpages on Reddit, especially the ones focused on specific games, also provide spaces for asking these types of questions. It has to be noted developing specific online languages is not unique to Twitch. It might indeed be argued that an entire online language has appeared, where languages also travel across a variety of video games and websites, but also to social media platforms or forums. This is exemplified by websites such as Know Your Meme (https://knowyourmeme.com), Urban Dictionary (https://urbandictionary.com) and Out of the Loop (https://reddit.com/r/outoftheloop), where online languages, shared histories and inside jokes of various websites and communities are explained. While a forum is not featured within Twitch, this type of communication appears to be crucial for helping users understand languages and creating sufficient knowledge and intimacy to the community. This insight suggests the social features offered by Twitch alone are insufficient for establishing a fully intimate relationship, as cross-media strategies have to be employed forsufficient knowledge.Uncertainty reduction is not confined to Twitch, but sustained by repeated cross-media encounters across a variety of websites, similar to previous chapters where cross- media encounters also took on a prominent role. Where traditional parasocial relationships might invite users to other encounters in different media outlets, a cross-media approach has now become essential for establishing the necessary intimacy, authenticity and knowledge.

This paragraph has shown Twitch’s language is a great source of intimacy between all users, connecting not only viewers, but streamers and commentators as well as all these social roles play their part in the constant developing, evolving and travelling of languages and expressions. Interestingly, the social interaction between users has become essential for establishing a parasocial bond between them. Massive settings are thereby no longer obstructive to intimacy, but help create and maintain it. Additionally, this paragraph shows understanding shared histories and languages is necessary for developing intimacy towards the paracommunity. This applies to both passive users who wish to understand the behaviours they observe, and active users who wish to actively participate in these behaviours. While this shows similarities to how repeated exposure increases a sense of knowing or understanding the persona more profoundly, differences with traditional parasocial theories also appear. While repeated exposure is rewarded in traditional settings, it becomes a necessity for Twitch’s community as it is impossible to understand, engage or participate in the chat room without sufficient knowledge. Additionally, contextual cross-media strategies have become more prominent, contrary to the secondary role these other encounters have in traditional theories, as social strategies outside of Twitch become essential for creating sufficient knowledge to establish an intimate parasocial relationship.

4.4 Values of the Paracommunity The previous chapter addressed how remaining passive in initially reciprocal and interactive situations grants viewers agency and the potential for playful behaviours. According to Hartmann, this playfulness is an essential value of parasocial interaction, also in traditional settings, as the one-sidedness of the relationship means there are no consequences to behaviours (Hartmann 182-3). In Twitch’s social context, the refusal and experimenting with roles becomes more active and visible by refusing to participate in expected behaviours, increasing agency and enhancing values viewers gain from these behaviours (Hartmann 182-3). Anonymity further increases in massive settings, as increased audience sizes allows viewers to disappear into the crowd and this increased perceived distance allows them to break rules and playfully experiment with

35 identities.Additionally, remaining passive means other participants are rendered entirely ineffective and cannot monitor or respond to behaviours (Hartmann 182-3).The availability of multiple active options of whether and how to engage indeed makes the paracommunity more attractive (Thorson and Rodgers 41). These values show many similarities to previous chapters, establishing playfulness, agency and perceived interaction as valuable, parasocial experiences exactly through the availability of social features.

It might be argued this playfulness is enhanced in online, reciprocal settings compared to traditional settings, as viewers gain agency and visibility, but this chapter has shown the flipside too. In traditional television settings, viewers are in their own safe spaces, unable to be affected by personae due to full asymmetry, thereby entirely free in their behaviours and expressions as they go unseen and unnoticed. By opening the relationship in reciprocity, this safe playfulness disappears, as there might be consequences to behaviours that do not correspond with Twitch’s codes, values or languages. On Twitch, behaviours and expressions are monitored not only by moderators, but also by other users. While viewers can hide in their anonymity, especially in massiveness where individual responses are actually rare, there might still be increased barriers for participation and increased risks as other users can potentially read and respond to an individual’s expressions. The added values of these reciprocal settings are opposed byincreased barriers for participation. Playfulness remains an essential part of parasocial experiences, but the nature of it has significantly changed as reciprocity has entered the equation. Now factors such as anonymity, risk management and barriers for participation appeared, creating tensions that cannot easily be resolved within this analysis. The parasocial framework alone is not sufficient for fully delineating and explaining this tension, meaning new tools are needed to explore this tension.

In previous chapters, massiveness became productive via voting or polls, thereby establishing interactive influence for viewers and interactive responses towards personae. However, these voting behaviours might also be considered part of the paracommunity as they help establish a connection between viewers. For example, when voting for the next character a streamer will play, a democratic value can be derived from showing the streamer the opinion of the community as a whole. The same applies when predicting which team is going to win in an eSports poll, as it becomes a way to feel part of the paracommunity. TwitchPlaysPokemon (TPP), a stream where users play Pokémon together without one individual streamer holding a central, hierarchal position, is another interesting example of the usage of polls and voting (https://twitch.tv/twitchplayspokemon). TPP- participants all insert their desired “move” into the chat (“a”, “b”, “down”, “right”, etc.), executed by the game automatically, leading to a game where all viewers collaboratively attempt to reach certain goals (Ramirez, Saucerman and Dietmeier 1-2). TPP started in 2014 as “self-proclaimed social experiment”, quickly gaining up to 36 million views and over a million active participants, becoming a famous “internet phenomenon” (Ramirez, Saucerman and Dietmeier 1).After TPP’s success, multiple channels appeared with similar

Image 4.4 Screenshot, 20 June 2017, .36 formats(https://twitch.tv/twitchplayshalos,https://twitch.tv/twitchplaysfallouts,https://twitch.tv./twitchp laysminecraft,https://twitch.tv/twitchplayshearths). Even though conversations in TPP’s chat room are not necessarily meaningful in traditional sense of the word, a productive playfulness appears, showing chats do not need to be “meaningful” in order to be valuable (image 4.4). The conversation consists of commands for the game and a small amount of strategy, like Lipoke claiming “We go to left now I think”, suggesting the next collaborative goal with an inclusive “we” to refer to all concurrent users (image 4.4) The collaborative play that appeared in the previous chapter, transforms into a communal playful experience in TPP, where all users can contribute to gameplay (Georgen, Duncan Cook 584). Ramirez, Saucerman and Dietmeier analyze TPP, arguing a “participatory culture” appears, as all contributions are valued equally and barriers for participation are low (3). Following this logic, participation in this collaborative play is not limited to dedicated users only. However, as TPP continued and developed, the “knowledge required to be considered an active member of the community grew”, with evolving inside jokes, shared histories and collective narratives (Ramirez, Saucerman and Dietmeier 7). Risks for participation and a certain degree of validity and intimacy again replace the initially free and open playfulness, again raising barriers for participation and tensions between playfulness and perceived risks.

In the previous chapters, crowd values were experienced in support towards the streamer, similar to how sports fans might display support in an arena in chants or cheers (Cheung and Huang 768). However, in this chapter two additional massive crowd behaviours appeared, namely displaying opinions in the context of an entire group, as has been encountered in the case of C9Sneaky’s music, or expressing knowledge of shared histories, for example via insider languages and jokes. In the last case, both authenticity and intimacy towards the community are displayed. Previously, a tension appeared between massiveness and intimacy, but this chapter shows massive settings are actually ideal for establishing intimacy towards the community, as well as authenticity. Additionally, the passive understanding of these crowd behaviours in their shared histories, jokes and interactions is satisfying in its own as the sense of being part of a group through observation is a valuable experience (Tsiotsou 404). It is hard to clearly separate what functions certain massive expressions have as, for example, supporting a streamer happens via particular inside, intimate languages. These expressions are not confined to singular goals or personae, which explains why it is hard to establish who behaviour is directed towards. Twitch’s languages warrant further research, as it is shown to be an interesting feature of the paracommunity that cannot be explored in sufficient detail within this parasocial context. However, it has become clear that within the paracommunity and via these languages, viewers are not isolated from personae, but all its users and social roles become connected in this shared knowledge. This means the parasocial relationships that were explored throughout this analysis all become part of this paracommunity. Participating in massive crowd behaviours strengthens the bond viewers feel towards new media performers, and the relationships with certain individual personae increase attraction and connection between their viewers. This connection between all its users expands the paracommunity and allows all social roles to add to its content.

Twitch sustains this intimate connection between users via its interface, through both the shared real time chat rooms as well in the shared live broadcast. By doing so, Twitch has created a layer of traditional broadcasting liveness, plus a layer of “online liveness” as introduced by Couldry (357). Online liveness is explained as a social co-presence of users, who might additionally be connected to a traditionally live “center of transmission” (Couldry 357). The connection between these two layers of liveness creates a connection and attraction between a large group of streamers, commentators, gamers and viewers who meet in live social co-presence and a traditional live broadcast. The imaginary connection that is established between traditional television spectators here becomes explicit and amplified in the real-time chat room, regardless of whether users actively send messages in the chat. It is thus precisely through its hybridity and unique integration of live broadcast settings into real time online settings, that this specific connection can appear, connecting users in shared interests, shared broadcasting and shared online co-presence. In this approach, liveness, both traditional and in online, social co-presence, becomes essential for creating this paracommunity and sustaining the relationship users feel towards each other. This sheds a new light on certain features, like the inclusion of the chat room

37 in archived videos and the new feature that will allow users to comment on this as well. When watching an archived video, one is not merely experiencing the broadcast content, but the real time chat is part of the experience too. While researchers acknowledge the role of liveness in television settings in connecting viewers to each other, it is an element that is not sufficiently addressed in traditional parasocial theories, while it has now appeared to be essential for connecting users and making them attractive to each other (White 75-6; Wohn and Na). I believe it would be interesting to analyze liveness in its connection to the parasocial, as it is often overlooked or taken for granted in parasocial theories in both traditional and online settings.

4.5 Conclusions This chapter explored behaviours in the chat room towards other viewers, especially in massive and passive settings where distance increases and social values might be argued to fade. Whereas individual conversations can appear in smaller streams, meaningful conversation is often argued to disappear when the amount of concurrent viewers increases. However, by analyzing the chat room from a parasocial point of view, the values of massive audience sizes in a paracommunity appeared. It is not necessarily the conversations between individuals, but the sense of being part of an entire community or group that is relevant in these usages. Massiveness is shown not to be obstructive, but essential for developing and sustaining parasocial relationships as it is crucial for establishing authenticity, intimacy and attraction. This chapter thereby shows it is exactly through Twitch’s social features that this intimate paracommunity appears. The difference between social and parasocial connections, “real” and “imaginary”, seems to have disappeared in this approach, as observing or engaging with this paracommunity has values based on being part of a connected group and sharing a live experience for both passive users and active participants.

Additionally, by integrating broadcast features into online environments, Twitch’s social features gain extra values as they are combined with shared live content for social attraction, connection and conversations. This integration creates a double layer of shared liveness on Twitch, as both the broadcast content and the onlinechat room are live experiences. When engaging with Twitch, one is thus not only sharing a live broadcast experience, but also sharing a live community experience in a social co-presence. It is exactly this double liveness that is essential to the existence of the paracommunity as it amplifies the connection and attraction between users. It is indeed via this liveness viewers, commentators and streamers all connect to each other, allowing all social roles to be a part of and contribute to the paracommunity. This once again emphasizes the crucial role Twitch’s social and interactive features play in connecting its users into one paracommunity. Liveness, both traditional and online, is not yet adequately addressed in previous parasocial theories, leading me to believe these concepts need further analysis in order to establish what their function is in parasocial relationships, both in online and televisual contexts.

Problems appear with the barriers for participation in these communities, as only dedicated members can fully engage and participate in the chat room. It seems like knowledge, cross-media encounters and repeated exposure have become obligatory for participation. If users do not possess all necessary knowledge they are excluded, making this parasocial relationship less of a safe space due to this increased reciprocity.There seems to be a fine balance, as playful behaviour and anonymity are opposed by increased barriers of participation. This tension cannot be explored in full detail within the parasocial framework, meaning more research with additional concepts is needed to do so. Twitch’s shared language also appears as an essential feature for creating both intimacy and connection, while simultaneously excluding others. This is another feature that cannot be explored in sufficient detail in parasocial frameworks and warrants future research. Additionally, it is important to remember that this framework is but one approach to this platform and there are behaviours and usages that disappear from sight in this chapter. There are limits to what behaviours can be seen within this framework, as social connections between individual users and interactions in small streams have not been discussed, while these are part of Twitch as well. While the parasocial has shown to be a valuable framework, showing how the paracommunity appears exactly by virtue of Twitch’s social features, other approaches are necessary to construct a fuller image of Twitch’s usages and behaviours. These and other issues will be discussed in my final conclusions, where I show directions future research might take.

Chapter 5. Conclusions

This analysis began questioning how parasocial relationships and Twitch’s social features might be connected. Throughout this analysis, the parasocial has helped explain and relieve tensions between social features and ‘anti’-social behaviours on Twitch, like massive streams and passive users. Throughout my exploration of a variety of personae on Twitch, it has become clear that parasocial relationships surface between Twitch viewers and varying social roles, even in reciprocal settings of personalized live-streams. Both the commentator and the streamer prove to be significantly different personae due to the varying social settings they are encountered in, showing the role of social contexts, reciprocal features, audience sizes and modes of gameplay. Parasocial elements appear in these social settings, creating a simulacrum of a relationship and a sense of intimacy between viewers and personae even when individual interaction is not established. These relationships can emerge from both active participation in the chat room, as well as passive observation of social interactions. Not only parasocial relationships with individual personae can appear on Twitch, as I introduce the term ‘paracommunity’, which provides new ways to analyze relationships towards an entire community. The paracommunity shows how a simulacrum of interaction with the entire group becomes more valuable than actual interaction with individual other users.Viewers are afforded a sense of agency with varying social, communal and playful values. Where massive streams initially seemed to obstruct intimacy, it becomes clear massiveness is indeed ideal for establishing intimacy, authenticity and attraction. It is exactly Twitch’s social features that are essential for creating this parasocial connection, sustained largely by Twitch’s double layer of liveness, created by its integration of the live broadcasts into an online setting with real time communication. The connection between traditional broadcast liveness and online liveness facilitates real time conversation in providing both content and infrastructure for conversations. When engaging with Twitch, users not only share a live broadcast experience, but also a live community experience. A felt connection between viewers, commentators and gamers appears, regardless of whether actual reciprocity is established or viewers remain passive.

When attempting to distinguish between social and parasocial, difficulties appear as these concepts have become inherently intertwined. During my analysis, passive and active behaviours contain both social and parasocial values, and social interactions contribute to parasocial experiences. Users constantly shift in their behaviours, easily combining parasocial and social elements into one singular encounter. Many researchers seem to still distinguish between social and parasocial as opposites or distinct categories, but this research provesthis is not always productive. Even Giles’ continuum attempts to find an encounter’s position on this scale, while rather, it might be more fruitful to explore the varying degrees of social and parasocial elements within one encounter. This means when applying the parasocial in the future, it is more useful and productive to employ these terms as theoretical frameworks rather than definitive categories in order to appreciate its dynamics and constant shifts. Here I also wish to emphasize that social and parasocial should not be understood in a hierarchy. The parasocial should not be considered invalid or subordinate to the social, as both provide meaningful experiences. Additionally, this analysis has shown the importance of a cross-media approach when applying such a parasocial framework to online environments. This has consistently returned throughout all chapters, especially when it comes to ensuring repeated encounters and uncertainty reduction. Whereas the traditional television persona was predictable and tied to a fixed schedule within one show, platform or medium, Twitch’s encounters are less stable and spread across a variety of channels or platforms. However, commentators and streamers can be encountered on a variety of social media platforms. There, they can establish authenticity, intimacy and stable other encounters. The same can be said for current television performers who now also establish an online presence on social media platforms. Whereas traditionally, other encounters are considered to be secondary, parasocial relationships here depend for a large part on cross-media encounters, meaning theseneed to be included in future research.

This parasocial framework, in emphasizing certain elements or behaviours, effaces other usages from sight. I do realize not all usages and behaviours of Twitch can be understood within this 39 framework, as small streams and the “Creative” sections provide spaces for entirely different types of interactions between individual users which are not accounted for within this research. A second limitation of my research is due to a language barrier, as my analysis merely focused on the English side of Twitch, while there is also great amount of content in Asian, Russian or European languages. Lastly, as Twitch is constantly developing and integrating new features it might be argued that this analysis is easily outdated. However, within this constant development, a trend of emphasizing and enhancing social features can be found. It is exactly this emphasis on sociability and the tensions surrounding that emphasis that mean this research will remain relevant and hopefully provide an inspiring starting point for further research into Twitch. Therefore, I hope my research inspires others to do research using different frameworks and concepts to explore different types of usages and content, contributing to a more complete image of Twitch’s community. Additionally, tensions appeared that could not be resolved within the context of this research. I therefore hope future research will explore the barriers of participation versus online anonymity, as chat rooms make playfulness more visible, but thereby also riskier. Despite the equalizing ideal behind online contexts, there seems to be a hierarchy where only certain users are fully valid members of the paracommunity. Additionally, Twitch’s language system provides for an interesting subject of further research, which might be taken up in the fields of linguistics to explore the role their exclusive and constantly developing vocabulary plays within the community.

Other interesting areas of future research that surfaced in this analysis are gender differences for personae, the varying values and layers of liveness and their function in parasocial relationships, and the way profit models, commercialization and commodification influence the parasocial. These areas are not only interesting for understanding Twitch better, but are also worth researching in broader media contexts as I wonder how these themes manifest themselves in relation to traditional television personae as well as in online contexts and on social media platforms. Tsiotsou has already shown the relevance of parasocial strategies employed by social media platforms, so I would be curious to see how the combination of social features and parasocial strategies shape user behaviours on popular platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube and what role commercialization and commodification perhaps play there (408). Additionally, I would be curious to see how liveness and real time communication relate to parasocial interaction in both online and traditional settings. Liveness and real time interaction surfaced as important elements on Twitch, leading me to believe this concept has not received enough attention in previous approaches and theories of parasocial interaction.Online liveness, as introduced by Couldry, also appears on YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and Snapchat, platforms that are now additionally integrating live streams into their interface (357). It would be interesting to explore how integrating live broadcasting into social platforms affects their community and user behaviours. Paracommunity might prove to be a useful tool for understanding the connections that this layer of online liveness creates for its users.Twitch additionally provides an interesting case- study for our current media environment where not only media figures become celebrities, but “’ordinary’ individuals” can gain celebrity statuses too by employing strategies of intimacy on social media platforms (Berryman and Kavka 318).This shows online platforms are not only used for maintaining celebrity statuses by famous media figures, but also for creating celebrity statuses. These social media celebrities, and their cross-media strategies to become famous and make profits, form an interesting part of our current media environment where themes as intimacy, authenticity and commercialization again become visible (Berryman and Kavka 309-10). As these behaviours can be recognized in famous Twitch-streamers as well, I wonder what a parasocial framework can mean in understanding these current “celebrity practices”.

All in all, a useful new framework has appeared in this analysis, allowing future researchers to apply the parasocial as a framework rather than a definitive category to other online environments, using the paracommunity and cross-media approaches. Social features have shown to be an interesting part of parasocial relationships, indeed sometimes essential for sustaining the necessary connection. With this research I hope to have shown how the parasocial, despite being a concept of over 60 years old, is valuable and relevant in our current media environment as it is a dynamic concept that allows for productive analyses in online, social settings, thereby hopefully inspiring future researchers to do so as well.

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