Someone recently said it freaked them out when I suddenly and accidentally looked at the camera during a chill co-working and music stream. I had to chuckle. It would be like the Lofi girl randomly turning to the camera and looking back.
It got me to thinking how programmed we all are to respond to video in particular ways based on what we have be raised watching all our lives. We are always the voyeur on the lives of the characters in the story. Rarely do the characters turn to you and speak directly. So when that happens in movies or even on a Twitch stream it can mess with our brains, for good or just plain evil fun.
I remember once watching the interactive horror movie where you are the voyeur the entire time, until suddenly at a very surprising moment, they main characters break the fourth wall to great effect and make a comment directly to the viewer. I still get chills. It set up the entire hour or more as a third-person observations, so that really messed with me, not like SheHulk or DeadPool or Ferris Beuller where they break it right away and keep on breaking it.
This all got me to thinking of ways to employ these truths to the streaming experience. I mean, I’m “Hard Core Harry” POV doing the dishes and biking most of the time. Then they are watching me from the side for more of my streams outside of that. Sometimes I talk directly to the people on the stream. Sometimes I don’t. I wonder if I should be more precise in my decisions about such things.
For example, when I’m biking or doing first-person shopping, or driving it feels like the viewers tend to imagine being with me, a buddy to the side of me walking around. We talk to each other like we would going on hike, or whatever. If I have someone else, then the viewer is a person in our posse out for drinks or food.
I’ve also noticed that when I watch streamers that are zoomed in and speaking directly to the camera that it really freaks me out if I’m not comfortable with the person, almost like I allowed them into my personal space and now I’m not sure I want them there. Some streamers regularly look into the camera to create a sense of intimacy (not sexual). I find I’m more comfortable with the streamers that do this but are relatively far away from me on the screen. Like they are across the room playing an instrument and I’m just sitting there having a drink talking to them.
I never thought I would enjoy over-analyzing all these little behavioral quirks we humans have with regard to video and streaming, but I really do. In fact, I think I will add the following tags to capture this:
povthirdpersonfourthwall