"Grab the Chat and Stick It to My Wall": Understanding How Social VR Streamers Bridge Immersive VR Experiences with Streaming Audiences Outside VR

Social VR platforms are increasingly transforming online social spaces by enhancing embodied and immersive social interactions within VR. However, how social VR users also share their activities outside the social VR platform, such as on 2D live streaming platforms, is an increasingly popular yet understudied phenomenon that blends social VR and live streaming research. Through 17 interviews with experienced social VR streamers, we unpack social VR streamers’ innovative strategies to further blur the boundary between VR and non-VR spaces to engage their audiences and potential limitations of their strategies. We add new insights into how social VR streamers transcend traditional 2D streamer-audience engagement, which also extend our current understandings of cross-reality interactions. Grounded in these insights, we propose design implications to better support more complicated cross-reality dynamics in social VR streaming while mitigating potential tensions, in hopes of achieving more inclusive, engaging, and secure cross-reality environments in the future.