Entirely new kinds of stories are possible when the audience has agency to play along with the show. Some interesting narrative examples of the past few years include Criken’s Ghost Commander, which allowed the audience to control ghosts and haunt live actors; Orbital Redux, a live participatory sci-fi ballet by Steven Calcote; and Artificial by Bernie Su, the first scripted narrative series to debut on Twitch. Artificial gives power to the audience to make decisions about an AI named Sophie. Viewers can participate in Q&A’s with the characters, vote on polls to change Sophie’s preferences, and even submit artwork that appears in the show. With Artificial, Su has pioneered a narrative method where audience members can pay for extra votes in a story choice using Twitch’s currency, Bits.

Interactive Chat

The Twitch chat for the Bob Ross Stream

By far, the feature that has added the most to the medium is the Twitch chat. Chat is an essential part of the live stream experience. It’s a game changer because it provides an outlet to relate, builds community in the channel, and allows the audience to be both passive and active participants in a show. Audience members can have conversations with each other as well as the broadcaster. They can give feedback, participate in Q&A’s, add creative ideas, make jokes, send greetings, cheers, and boos. Chat allows the possibility for audience members to be elevated from viewers to participants.

But for now, chat and video are still pretty separate entities in live streaming. So what are some of the interesting ways that chat can become a larger part of the show?

Chinese “Bullet Chat”

The best place to search for the answer to that question may be in China. “When it comes to live streaming, China is at another level,” says live streaming expert Peter Yang in A Primer on China’s Live Streaming Market. In China, “IRL streams” dominate the market over game live streaming. IRL streams involve an influencer “host” sitting in front of a webcam chatting about life with their viewers. These streams are monetized through donation and virtual goods systems. Buying expensive virtual gifts is seen as a way to get the attention of a streamer and hypothetically offers a momentary cure for loneliness. Another style of social interactivity featured in the Chinese live stream ecosystem is Bullet Chat (seen above). Bullet Chat displays comments as graphics that float across the screen in real time, allowing UGC to become part of the show itself.

Harassment

PaladinAmber interrupts her gameplay with Breaking News segments aimed to call out harassment in the chat

So far, we’ve seen many of the positive and creative ways that broadcasters are leveraging audience involvement, but it’s essential to also address the harmful impacts that participation can have.

“Harassment is a common problem in game live streaming, and affects both variety and esports streaming in devastating and powerful ways” says T.L. Taylor. “Women, people of color, and LGBTQIA streamers — and at times even audience members — are especially subjected to a stream of cruelty that includes hate speech, incessant commentary on one’s looks or behavior, visual abuse via unwanted imagery, and practices that disrupt the channel.”

Toxic chat is a huge issue facing the broadcasters and viewers of this format. The big social platforms are notorious for allowing discriminatory behavior to exist and thrive in their ecosystems because they profit from engagement, good or bad. Hateful participation is a universal problem across the social web and this issue compounds in real time environments with less time to process language, emotions, and effects.

Twitch’s Automod allows the streamer to set their own chat filters

It’s still early days for the interactive live streaming format and now is the time to be thoughtful about how we will enable the audience to interact and how we can influence positive behavior in the chat. Some modest steps to create healthier environments have been made but we have a long way to go. As seen above, Twitch has broadcast settings that help filter certain words from the chat, which can help, however because it’s the Internet, people will find a way around the policing of interactions and free speech.

Recently, a streamer named PaladinAmber went viral by publicly shutting down her trolls with comedic “Breaking News” segments that set boundaries and called out harassment on her channel. Other broadcasters sometimes opt to turn chat off entirely. It will be critical to find safe systems to both moderate and showcase audience participation. In addition to bots like Automod to remove content, I believe that the other best practice will be to promote valuable chats into the shows more often. Instead of hiding from the problem, let’s fix it. Elevating and rewarding positive contributions will encourage better audience behavior and better content.

“Regenerative listening is the equivalent of looking your audience members in their eyes, conveying your shared values and aspirations within the context of your stories, and acknowledging one another as human beings worthy of being heard.” says Jeff Gomez

Co-Streaming

Two rappers, an NFL player, and a gamer walk into a bar…

“Co-Streaming” is another way that interactive live streaming can be more participatory than cable TV, because co-streaming allows multiple broadcasters to stream the same event from their unique POV’s, expanding the reach of the show. For example, with Twitch Rivals, a weekly live streamed esports tournament, the camera’s perspective flips around from gamer to gamer which encourages the audience to click through and watch the personal stream of any gamer they like.

This networked broadcasting concept has incredibly exciting potential for crossover events as well as more personalized commentary where audiences choose which host they’d like to hear during a live event. When multiple streamers team up to broadcast together, the broadcast has the potential for massive crossover appeal. For instance, Drake, Travis Scott, and Ju Ju Smith Schuster joined popular game live streamer Ninja to play Fortnite together, over 600,000 concurrent viewers tuned in at once, marking a truly mainstream moment for video games as well as live streaming.

Interactive Live Streaming Use Cases