Shared Spaces as Authenticity: Exploring the Connectedness of the Physical Environments of Microstreamers and their Audience

Abstract

This work examines how the on-camera environments of small streamers with extremely limited audiences (i.e. microstreamers) generate a form of authenticity and charm directly from the unstaged nature of said environments, and through the multi-purpose nature of these locations. While much of the current research on streaming has focused on larger, more professionalized (and monetized) activity, the microstreams explored here are significant in that they create a very different sense of audience engagement. The combination of (a) the unstaged nature of microstreaming environments, combined with (b) unscripted and unplanned actors and interruptions (pets, other members of the household, etc.) as well as (c) widely varying production values that range from nonexistent to low-budget mimicry of more professionalized streamers work together to generate a kind of intimacy that is consciously or unconsciously leveraged by the streamer themselves. In their failure to successfully demarcate frontstage and backstage efforts, microstreamers successfully engage audience members in the messiness of life.