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Punchlines Unbound: Comedy Practices in Social Virtual Reality

Ryo Ohara, Chi-Lan Yang, Yuji Hatada, Takuji Narumi, Hideaki Kuzuoka

TL;DR

Punchlines Unbound investigates how comedians perform in avatar-mediated social virtual reality, focusing on how performers compensate for limited nonverbal expressivity in VRChat environments. The study combines semi-structured interviews with 23 virtual comedians and systematic performance observations, analyzed via reflexive thematic analysis to identify strategies, audience feedback practices, and community moderation. The findings show that performers creatively transform expressive constraints into performative opportunities, with context-specific audience emoji feedback and self-governed moderation shaping sustained virtual live comedy. The work offers design implications for feedback visibility, avatar tooling accessibility, and lightweight moderation to support expressive, collaborative performances without stifling creativity, contributing to live-performance design in immersive platforms.

Abstract

Social VR platforms serve as an emergent venue for live performance, enabling co-presence and real-time interaction among distributed performers and audiences within shared virtual environments. Live performances, such as comedy, rely on subtle social cues between performers and audiences, which are missing in VR. However, it remains unclear how comedians utilize avatar-mediated cues in social VR. We conducted semi-structured interviews and observations with 23 virtual comedians on VRChat. Results revealed that virtual comedians transformed their limited nonverbal expressiveness into performative opportunities through intentional control and exaggeration. Additionally, a distinctive culture emerged around context-appropriate emoji reactions from audiences, while challenges such as audio latency and moderation against trolling were highlighted. Our findings advance understanding of how performers creatively adapt to expressive constraints in avatar-mediated settings. We further demonstrate how challenges in performer-audience interaction and moderation provide design insights for systems enhancing feedback visibility and sustain community norms without restricting creative expression.

Punchlines Unbound: Comedy Practices in Social Virtual Reality

TL;DR

Punchlines Unbound investigates how comedians perform in avatar-mediated social virtual reality, focusing on how performers compensate for limited nonverbal expressivity in VRChat environments. The study combines semi-structured interviews with 23 virtual comedians and systematic performance observations, analyzed via reflexive thematic analysis to identify strategies, audience feedback practices, and community moderation. The findings show that performers creatively transform expressive constraints into performative opportunities, with context-specific audience emoji feedback and self-governed moderation shaping sustained virtual live comedy. The work offers design implications for feedback visibility, avatar tooling accessibility, and lightweight moderation to support expressive, collaborative performances without stifling creativity, contributing to live-performance design in immersive platforms.

Abstract

Social VR platforms serve as an emergent venue for live performance, enabling co-presence and real-time interaction among distributed performers and audiences within shared virtual environments. Live performances, such as comedy, rely on subtle social cues between performers and audiences, which are missing in VR. However, it remains unclear how comedians utilize avatar-mediated cues in social VR. We conducted semi-structured interviews and observations with 23 virtual comedians on VRChat. Results revealed that virtual comedians transformed their limited nonverbal expressiveness into performative opportunities through intentional control and exaggeration. Additionally, a distinctive culture emerged around context-appropriate emoji reactions from audiences, while challenges such as audio latency and moderation against trolling were highlighted. Our findings advance understanding of how performers creatively adapt to expressive constraints in avatar-mediated settings. We further demonstrate how challenges in performer-audience interaction and moderation provide design insights for systems enhancing feedback visibility and sustain community norms without restricting creative expression.
Paper Structure (49 sections, 2 figures, 2 tables)

This paper contains 49 sections, 2 figures, 2 tables.

Table of Contents

  1. INTRODUCTION
  2. RELATED WORK
  3. Social VR
  4. Avatar-Mediated Social Interaction
  5. Technology-Mediated Comedy, Laughter, and Norms
  6. METHODOLOGY
  7. Positionality Statement
  8. Participants and Study Sites
  9. Interviews
  10. Observations
  11. Data Analysis
  12. FINDINGS
  13. Strategies for the Performance of Virtual Comedians
  14. Creative Transformation of Constraints
  15. Manually Expressing Nonverbal Cues
  16. ...and 34 more sections

Figures (2)

  • Figure 1: Illustrations of the four comedy styles observed in this study.
  • Figure 2: Radial menu interface in VRChat used to trigger emoji reactions. Source: VRChat Documentation Wiki https://wiki.vrchat.com/wiki/Action_Menu, licensed under CC BY-SA.