Does Synchronicity of Emotion Between Steamers and Viewers Influence Consumption? Evidence from Live Streaming of Virtual Idols

Abstract

Live streaming has become increasingly popular for broadcasting live events or experiences to an online audience in real time. With the prevalence of the metaverse, virtual idols appear on the stage of live streaming. Unlike real human streamers, virtual idols’ appearance is computer-generated and does not exist in the physical world. Though existing literature has documented the effect of emotions on viewers’ behavior, they mainly focus on real humans and either side of streamers or viewers. To fill this gap, we consider both sides and focus on the synchronicity of emotion between the two sides, which we term steamer-viewer emotional synchronicity. We compare the relationship between steamer-viewer emotional synchronicity and viewers’ consumption across the live stream by virtual idols vs. real humans. Our analysis of large-scale video data shows that compared to real-human streamers, virtual streamers are more likely to trigger steamer-viewer emotional synchronicity when expressing happiness, leading to more consumption; but virtual streamers struggle more to do so when conveying sadness, leading to reduced consumption. This study sheds light on how avatars can be designed to leverage emotion to engage viewers.