Engagement With the Gurus of Gaming Culture: Parasocial Relationships to Let’s Players

Abstract

Let’s Players have emerged as a successful class of entertainers in the YouTube® universe. Most of their broadcasts not only relate to video games and gaming but also feature elements of talk shows and other modes of personality entertainment, including star–fan interaction through social media channels. Hence, they represent focal points of reference for gamers and important manifestations of contemporary gaming culture. The present contribution applies the concept of parasocial relationships (PSR) to examine how dimensional compositions and formation dynamics of audience engagement with Let’s Players are affected by the specific conditions of digital online media environments. Findings from an online survey indicate that PSR with popular Let’s Players are composed partially similar to “conventional” stars, but seem to rest more on interactive responsiveness and less on idolizing “larger-than-life” characters. Implications for PSR theory in hybrid mass/online communication settings and for digital gaming culture are discussed.

Keywords

parasocial relationships Let’s Play YouTube video games gaming communities

An interesting consequence of the rapid growth of audiences on online video platforms such as YouTube® is the emergence of a new type of celebrity. These online stars reach out to large and loyal audiences, oftentimes counting hundreds of thousands or even millions of fans (Postigo, 2016). They produce and disseminate their own content at a relatively high pace and use the technical features of online communication and social media to promote their reputation, grow their fan base, and build their brand (Djafarova & Trofimenko, 2018). Many of these successful internet celebrities produce reviews (e.g., of technical equipment), create instructional content like tutorials (e.g., for cooking, gardening, or handicraft work), or share personal experiences in video diaries or “vlogs” (Cunningham & Craig, 2017). Some of the most successful online stars have evolved from and within video game culture: they produce game reviews and critique, offer help and advice for technical and gameplay issues, or simply share their gameplay experiences with others. Particularly the so-called “Let’s Players” have gained massive popularity by recording and disseminating videos of themselves playing and commenting on video games and many other topics more or less related to games and gaming (Nguyen, 2016). For example, with more than 109 million subscribers and over 27 billion video views as of March 2021 (Socialblade, 2021a), one of YouTube’s most popular channels belongs to content creator “PewDiePie,”¹ who rose to fame uploading Let’s Play videos on the platform.

The remarkable fan base and outreach of many of these Let’s Players call for scientific explanation. How do they rise to internet fame, how do they bind their (gamer) audiences, and are the connection mechanics between fans and Let’s Players different from conventional celebrities who are “pushed by” offline mass media such as broadcast television and tabloid newspapers?

The present contribution explores the possible particularities of Let’s Player popularity by applying a concept from communication research that has been advanced to understand the reputation and audience appeal of conventional celebrities, namely the concept of parasocial relationships (PSR; Horton & Wohl, 1956; Klimmt, Hartmann, & Schramm, 2006; Perse & Rubin, 1989). Because most Let’s Players operate YouTube channels built around themselves as single entertainers and upload content that often follows an episodic, serial structure over longer periods of time (Smith, Obrist, & Wright, 2013), the applicability of the concept of PSR seems plausible, especially in the context of existing studies focusing on parasocial processes with characters in television series (Eyal & Cohen, 2006; Eyal & Rubin, 2010; Tian & Hoffner, 2010).

We argue, however, that the psychological architecture of PSR might be different for Let’s Players because the high degree of interactivity and the participatory nature of online video and other social media platforms may alter audiences’ perception of proximity, accessibility, responsiveness, similarity, and other relevant celebrity features. Based on survey data on fans’ PSR to successful German Let’s Players, we search for such peculiarities in the dimensionality of PSR to Let’s Players by investigating how important the theoretically well-established dimensions of PSR to (YouTube) celebrities are in the context of Let's Players. Moreover, we examine how these PSR dimensions are related to the intensity with which fans consume Let’s Players’ content—a first exploration of whether PSR can actually explain the popularity of these new types of celebrities.

Object of Research: Let’s Players as a New Category of Media Celebrities

Even though a large number of Let's Players attract only small audiences and do not fulfill the criteria of stardom by any means, many Let’s Players have indeed emerged as new (online) celebrities. Worldwide, social media analytics website Social Blade lists several thousand Let’s Players with more than one million YouTube subscribers (Socialblade, 2021a). While English-speaking countries like the United States, Canada, and Great Britain are home to many popular Let’s Players, the phenomenon stretches around the globe and sees some of the most successful channels in the world originate from countries like Chile, Spain, Brazil, Turkey, Ireland, or the Netherlands. With almost five million subscribers and over three billion video views, the YouTube channel of Let’s Player “Gronkh” ranks as one of the most popular in Germany (Socialblade, 2021b).

The few scholars who have already addressed the phenomenon have pointed out that defining the Let’s Play genre and its originators is challenging: A set of different (sub-)genre labels has emerged from the community of practice, including Let’s Plays, Walkthroughs, and Speedruns (Hale, Hartmann, & Schlemermeyer, 2017; Kerttula, 2019; Nguyen, 2016; Smith et al., 2013). The Walkthrough genre is characterized by service to gamers who seek advice on making progress in a video game that they play themselves (Consalvo, 2003). Speedruns—videos that display how a player completes a game or level in extremely short time—address the demonstration of extraordinary (gaming) skill (Nguyen, 2016).

In contrast to Walkthroughs and Speedruns, Let’s Plays are online videos of a person playing one or more video games and commenting verbally on the depicted events and their thoughts about them. While there is considerable variation within what most users would recognize as Let’s Plays (Hale et al., 2017), Let’s Plays’ core content quality is entertainment related to playing video games (and not so much service or record-hunting), as they mostly display self-presentation of the “host” that is similar to TV talk show formats, and, with regard to how they play games, feature uncertainty, error, confusion, or surprise instead of instruction, expertise, and thoroughness (Consalvo, 2003; Nguyen, 2016).

A similar, yet distinct genre of gaming-related online video is gaming livestreams (e.g., on Twitch®; Taylor, 2018). However, due to these live broadcasts happening “in the moment” and because of the rather regular portrayal of competitive and/or multiplayer gaming sessions on livestreaming platforms, Twitch celebrities and fans’ perception of them deserve a conceptual approach in its own right that builds on past work on PSR with celebrities in live television and/or sports (e.g., Hartmann, Stuke, & Daschmann, 2008; Wulf, Schneider, & Beckert, 2018). Furthermore, the widespread existence of live chat functionality adds an element of interactivity to livestream consumption that is likely to have an impact on the manifestation of PSR compared to the on-demand consumption of Let’s Plays.

As a result of our review of past work, we suggest to define Let’s Plays as videos that are distributed online not as livestreams but for asynchronous on-demand consumption and that present a person playing one or more video games and commenting verbally on the depicted events. Along these lines of argumentation, Let’s Players are those communicators who produce and disseminate Let’s Play videos on a regular basis. In doing so, they create and develop this genre of online entertainment centered on the leisure time domain of video games. Their activity is, however, comparable to other online entertainers who not only produce and distribute their videos under similar technical and economic conditions but also address other topics and life domains such as beauty, comedy, or music.

Theoretical Approach: PSR to Offline and Online Celebrities

When Horton and Wohl conceptualized parasocial interactions (PSI) and relationships (PSR) in 1956, they described the latter as the illusionary relationship between a member of the audience and a media character, the “persona” (p. 216). In reality, this relationship is unidirectional and offers no way for the persona to interact with the recipient. In the past, PSR and PSI have to some extent been used synonymously or as parts of a joint concept (e.g., Rubin, Perse, & Powell, 1985), even though clear distinctions can and need to be made: While PSI is limited to a singular situation of media exposure to the persona, PSR specifically refers to an enduring, long-term connection between audience and persona, a connection that is built on and spans across and beyond multiple exposure situations (Dibble, Hartmann, & Rosaen, 2016; Klimmt et al., 2006; Tukachinsky & Stever, 2019).

Early research on PSI and PSR focused primarily on fictional and nonfictional personae in television and radio, such as characters in TV series, newscasters, and presenters (e.g., Hoffner, 1996; Rubin & Perse, 1987; Rubin et al., 1985; Vorderer & Knobloch, 1996), while newer works examine a wide assortment of personae across different types of media, ranging from politicians and athletes (e.g., Cohen & Holbert, 2018; Hartmann et al., 2008) to new media personae in social networks and online communities (e.g., Ballantine & Martin, 2005; Blight, Ruppel, & Schoenbauer, 2017) and even to entirely artificial personae, such as characters in fantasy literature or video game avatars (e.g., Banks & Bowman, 2016; Hartmann, 2008; Hartmann, Klimmt, & Vorderer, 2001; Schmid & Klimmt, 2011).

Research on PSR in particular has demonstrated that media personae serve diverse social needs of their audiences: They are perceived, for example, as friends, comforting supporters, reliable mood optimizers, or aesthetic objects of desire and admiration (Hartmann, 2016; Horton & Wohl, 1956; Perse & Rubin, 1989). In this sense, PSR are experienced as only marginally different from real-world relationships with similar development processes and a similar range of associated qualities (Cole & Leets, 1999; Perse & Rubin, 1989). By the same token, they are not perceived as very “demanding” in the sense that audience members can enjoy (simulated, as-if) experiences of social relationships with the persona, but do not have to invest much time, cost, energy, or social obligation into the relationship, which marks an important difference to real-life relationships (Vorderer & Knobloch, 1996). Horton and Wohl (1956) therefore speak of “intimacy at a distance” (p. 215) and “growth without development” (p. 217), addressing the fact that PSR are highly dependable and predictable from the fans’ perspective, but offer little progression due to the lack of reciprocal interaction between fan and persona. However, fans can invest substantial time and resources into their PSR and may hence intensify their social experience even if most parts of it are still imaginary (Klimmt et al., 2006). And while PSR remain unidirectional and can therefore be terminated by the recipient at any moment without fear of negative consequences from the persona, research has also found that PSR break-up can cause sentiments of negativity for the recipients, for example if the persona suddenly disappears from one’s favorite television series (Cohen, 2003; Eyal & Cohen, 2006).

PSR with Let’s Players

In their 1956 article, Horton and Wohl already presumed that PSR are formed particularly with personae who appear to the audience on a regular, returning basis. Additionally, Klimmt et al. (2006) state that “the more noticeable a persona within a media product is, the more probable are intense parasocial responses from the viewers. If a media offering centers around one protagonist and presents her/him frequently and with many close-up shots, s/he is highly obtrusive and persistent” (p. 301). For this reason, it does not surprise that PSR can commonly be found with figures from TV series (Eyal & Cohen, 2006; Eyal & Rubin, 2010). However, a very similar episodic, serial structure is common for online video content on YouTube as well. Especially in the case of Let’s Players, their content also focuses primarily on one singular persona who is frequently presented to the audience over a longer period of time. Many popular Let’s Players are oftentimes active in multiple ongoing series at once and allow fans to consume their content almost daily, sometimes even multiple times per day (Smith et al., 2013). At the same time, these high levels of obtrusiveness and persistence are key elements for the theoretical applicability of PSR: Frequent contacts make the persona extremely noticeable in the sense of Klimmt et al. (2006) and should therefore also result in a great likelihood of high-intensity PSR to these types of online celebrities (Kurtin, O'Brien, Roy, & Dam, 2018; Rihl & Wegener, 2019). Furthermore, the characteristics of the medium, especially its potential for higher levels of interaction between persona and audience, may influence how PSR are experienced.

The Dimensional Architecture of PSR to Let’s Players

Although established measurements for parasocial phenomena, such as the Celebrity-Persona Interaction Scale (Bocarnea & Brown, 2007) or the Parasocial Interaction Scale (Rubin & Perse, 1987; Rubin et al., 1985) often measure aspects of both PSI and PSR, they clearly acknowledge a multidimensional structure of parasocial processes. Likewise, scales focusing exclusively on PSI, such as the Experience of Parasocial Interaction (EPSI) scale (Hartmann & Goldhoorn, 2011), or on PSR, such as the scale by Hartmann et al. (2008), also conceptualize parasocial phenomena as multidimensional. Key dimensions include liking, admiration, and friendship (Tukachinsky & Stever, 2019), as well as the perceived presence of and similarity with the persona. We adopt this multidimensional approach in the present study. In the following, we will specify relevant dimensions for the conceptualization of PSR to Let’s Players based on prior studies of media personae in general and YouTube stars in particular.

Liking

A dominant element of PSR is fans’ perception of the celebrity as a well-liked, close friend (e.g., Schmid & Klimmt, 2011). Although negative PSR with feelings of antipathy and disinterest exist, they are experienced as less intense (Hartmann et al., 2008; Tian & Hoffner, 2010) and should therefore not play a substantial role for the popularity of Let's Players among their fans. Instead, just like PSR to “conventional” celebrities, PSR to Let’s Players likely mirror aspects of real-world friendships, such as the feeling of knowing the star well or missing the star when they do not appear for longer periods of time. Dibble and Rosaen (2011), using both the EPSI scale and the 10-item PSI scale by Rubin and Perse (1987), found that participants scored higher on the respective scales when asked about characters they liked. Recent survey work supports the assumption of the importance of the liking dimension for parasocial responses to YouTube celebrities (Kurtin et al., 2018; Rihl & Wegener, 2019).

Imagined awareness

In line with Klimmt et al. (2006), we can assume that high levels of obtrusiveness likely play an important role for intense PSR experiences. This might in turn be a result of a prominently perceived presence of the persona, conceptualized by Hartmann and Goldhoorn (2011) as mutual awareness and attention. For YouTube stars such as Let’s Players, actions like gazing straight into the camera or directly addressing the audience can make fans feel like the celebrity is aware of them and pays attention to them. Several studies surveying TV audiences support these assumptions by reporting the more the intense parasocial experiences, the more respondents felt directly addressed by the characters on screen (Hartmann & Goldhoorn, 2011; Hartmann & Klimmt, 2005). Current observations of popular Let’s Players (e.g., Beers Fägersten, 2017) reveal their frequent direct addressing of the audience and the importance of using “facecams” (mounting a small video image of their face into the ongoing message). Moreover, since no other individuals (e.g., guests or interview partners) typically occur in Let’s Plays, these messages are strongly focused on the Let’s Player, which should also promote viewers’ perception of celebrity presence and hence strengthen this dimension of PSR.

Interactivity and responsiveness

For offline celebrities such as sports stars, musicians, or presenters, asymmetry is a key element of their fans’ PSR (Schramm, Hartmann, & Klimmt, 2002). In offline contexts, stars can virtually never respond to individual fans in a truly interaction-like manner (Dibble et al., 2016). Consequently, they will most often appear as “far away,” “elevated,” or “larger than life,” and experiences of closeness or even intimacy can only arise from imagination.

While online celebrities such as Let’s Players often share many features of conventional stars, such as physical attractiveness, specific talents, or the offer of very appealing content, fans’ PSR to them may display much less asymmetry than classic stars because YouTube and other online platforms enable various forms of (more or less) direct interaction between audience and celebrity (Frederick, Lim, Clavio, Pedersen, & Burch, 2012). A simple example is the comment function that allows users to leave messages to their stars and enables celebrities to take up these messages and respond to them. Rihl and Wegener (2019) show, for example, that interactivity positively affects the strength of the audience’s parasocial relationship with YouTube celebrities, even if true responsiveness (e.g., the YouTube star responding to a comment made by a fan) remains comparatively rare. Thus, it might not be necessary to make actual use of such bilateral interactive features, but knowing about the possibility of establishing an online connection to one’s preferred star that is similar to the communication links one who maintains with good offline friends may be sufficient to create a different, particularly appealing quality of PSR. Moving the relationship one step toward the orthosocial, Let’s Players may still address topics that one or many fans have dealt with in their online commentaries in a new video and they might even mention individual fans by (nick-)name or use other rhetoric strategies to respond to user communication, potentially strengthening users’ PSR in the process (Hartmann & Klimmt, 2005; Rihl & Wegener, 2019). Hence, the composition of PSR to Let’s Players might be less asymmetric than conventional PSR, and this discrepancy might spill over to other elements of PSR as well.

Perceived similarity and wishful identification

Many online celebrities seem to operate with esthetics and content strategies that resemble nonprofessional, “user-generated content” styles, for example, by refraining from high-tech studio settings or fancy screen design (Chen, 2016). In the case of Let’s Players, many even film themselves playing popular video games in their own living rooms, in what seems to be an entirely “natural,” authentic environment. This setting is all too familiar for the audience, and thus, PSR to Let’s Players may be specific on the dimension of perceived similarity as well: Let’s Players may not appear “far away” or super-admirable in the eyes of their fans, and this perceived similarity may further increase the intensity of fans’ PSR (Hartmann et al., 2001; Tian & Hoffner, 2010). In this sense, fans of popular Let’s Players might also experience comparatively low levels of wishful identification, as they already perceive themselves to be very similar to their favorites. It should be noted, however, that an increasing number of successful Let’s Players are beginning to produce their content in professional studio environments set up specifically for this purpose. In this sense, they also are no longer operating all by themselves but have built sophisticated business models and established network structures to cooperate with other content creators as well as with popular brands for advertisement and sponsorship purposes. Nonetheless, recent studies show that even these “professionalized” YouTube stars maintain elements of “ordinariness, intimacy, and equality” (Hou, 2019, p. 536) and manage to “merge commodification and branding smoothly with intimacy and authenticity’” (Jerslev, 2016, p. 5240; see also Chen, 2016; Cunningham & Craig, 2017). In this sense, they clearly and intentionally set themselves apart from celebrities pushed by “conventional” mass media. Hou (2019) describes this as “staged authenticity,” indicating that certain aspects of this process of professionalization may deliberately remain hidden from the audience. For this reason, we argue that fans should be able to more easily detect (apparent) similarities with YouTube stars and categorize them as member of their “in-group,” especially with Let’s Players, because of the aforementioned particularities regarding the ways these celebrities produce their content and present themselves.

Entertainability and informativeness

Even though YouTube stars serve a wide range of purposes for broad audiences, a key similarity is their role as entertainers. They are expected to provide joy and amusement, and these qualities have been identified as key reasons for fans’ motivation to watch Let’s Plays (Possler, Klimmt & Kisser, 2017). Smith et al. (2013) state that “the success of a LP broadcaster is not based on their skill in the game […] but how entertaining they are as they play the game” (p. 133) and Menotti (2014) argues that it is “not the player’s skills, but his reactions, which become a source of amusement” (p. 89). However, despite their quest to entertain, Let’s Players might also serve as informants able to provide their fans with video game recommendations, critique, and strategies. As more and more Let’s Players receive early copies of the latest video game releases from game publishers, the likelihood of fans perceiving their favorite content creators as sources of knowledge and information might also increase. Hence, the shared game involvement of Let’s Players and their audiences may substantiate the informativeness component of PSR and thus materialize the relevance of Let’s Players for contemporary gaming culture.

Summary and Research Questions

The review and application of conceptual dimensions of PSR suggests that several relationship components are highly relevant for modeling audience engagement with Let’s Players. For many of the discussed dimensions, there are reasons to expect similar audience responses (and thus conceptual relevance) as with conventional (offline, mass media-based) stars. Most importantly, the liking dimension is assumed to dominate PSR to Let’s Players just as it has been observed in past work on conventional celebrities (e.g., Schmid & Klimmt, 2011). On the other hand, prior research on (PSR to) YouTube stars (e.g., Hou, 2019; Rihl & Wegener, 2019) suggests that due to some elements of the digital environment of social media, namely interactivity and the (seemingly) amateurish production style, important differences in the PSR architecture exist, most likely applying to the dimensions of responsiveness, perceived similarity, and wishful identification. Thus, while previous studies suggest that the dimensions that have been well-established in PSR research for years also apply in the context of YouTube celebrities (e.g., Rihl & Wegener, 2019), there are reasons to assume that PSR to Let’s Players are configured in a specific way, in the sense that the relative importance of these dimensions may differ from PSR to traditional celebrities. Because little empirical exploratory research is available on the topic so far, we posit the first research question:

RQ1: What is the dimensional architecture of fans’ PSR to Let’s Players?

As the overall goal of the present study is to better understand the popularity of Let’s Players and their remarkable fan base and outreach, the perspective of comparing PSR to Let’s Players with what past research has revealed about PSR to conventional celebrities should be expanded beyond the dimensional architecture of users’ relationship experiences. Specifically, the relevance of PSR in communication research has inter alia been explicated by its importance in understanding media choice decisions as well as audience loyalty with personae and serial media content (Klimmt et al., 2006). In turn, it was shown that the frequency of exposure to a media persona intensifies the PSR (e.g., Dibble & Rosaen, 2011) and that this also applies for YouTube celebrities (Kurtin et al., 2018). Thus, with regard to (repeated) media use, a strong relationship between the intensity of PSR to media celebrities and their popularity—for example, the frequency of fans’ reception of their content—has been suggested (Klimmt et al., 2006). If such a relationship can also be observed for Let’s Players, first evidence would be secured that PSR are indeed a mechanism that can explain the remarkable fan base of these new types of celebrities. By investigating the relationship between the individual PSR dimensions and fans’ frequency of content consumption, we, therefore, aim to examine which aspects of the dimensional architecture (RQ1) are most important for the popularity of this new type of celebrity. We thus posit the second research question:

RQ2: To what extent are the individual PSR dimensions related to fans’ frequency of watching a Let’s Player’s content?

Method

Participants

A quantitative online survey was conducted among fans of German Let’s Players. We focused on respondents for whom a particularly strong PSR could be expected because we were interested in the dimensional quality of PSR and not in explaining variation in PSR between individuals. To recruit participants, we contacted 50 of Germany’s most-subscribed Let’s Players on YouTube and asked them to distribute the link to our survey among their audience. We also collaborated with over 60 Facebook pages and fan communities of popular Let’s Players to further increase fan diversity within our sample. The survey was implemented in German language.

In total, N = 859 participants completed the survey and a remarkable diversity of 122 favorite Let’s Players was named. About 80% (n = 688) of the respondents identified as male, with an average age of 18 years (SD = 4.10)². The majority reported to still attend school (n = 491; 58%), to do an apprenticeship (n = 121; 14%), or to be enrolled in higher education (n = 94; 11%). 17% of participants reported to be employed or to seek employment (n = 146). The demographic composition of the sample is largely consistent with results from previous studies on the subject: Both Biermann and Becker (2017) as well as Possler et al. (2017) also found that their respondents were predominantly male and belonged to the group of teenagers and young adults. Both studies used a similar recruitment strategy as our study (i.e., asking prominent Let's Players to invite their community and spreading the call for participation on fan sites).

Measures

After respondents identified their favorite Let’s Player, the central part of the questionnaire consisted of 28 items addressing various dimensions of PSR to the Let’s Player that were adopted from previous studies (Dibble & Rosaen, 2011; Hartmann & Goldhoorn, 2011; Hartmann & Klimmt, 2005; Hartmann et al., 2008; Hoffner, 1996; Rubin & Perse, 1987). As outlined in the theory section, (1) liking, (2) perceived similarity, (3) wishful identification, (4) entertainability, (5) informativeness, (6) imagined awareness of the celebrity (e.g., “When I watch the Let’s Player’s videos, I have the feeling they know I am watching”), and (7) perceived interactivity and responsiveness (the impression that the Let’s Player can or does interact with the audience through comments or messages, e.g., “I feel like the Let’s Player pays attention to comments left by the audience”) were surveyed using multiple items with a five-point Likert-type scale and verbalized endpoints from 1 = “do not agree at all” to 5 = “agree completely.” Table 1 provides more details on the applied measures. Participants were also asked to indicate on how many days in a regular week they watch Let’s Plays in general as well as on how many days they consume videos from their favorite Let’s Player (see RQ2). Nearly all participants (n = 796) claim to watch Let’s Plays several times a week, 74% (n = 639) do so on a daily basis, and over half of the respondents (n = 495) consume content from their favorite Let’s Player every day.

Table 1.

Component Loadings of the Principal Component Analysis of the parasocial relationships Dimensions.

Item label	Liking	Informativeness	Wishful identification	Responsiveness	Entertainability	Imagined awareness	Perceived similarity
I would call myself a fan of FLP.	0.75
I would miss FLP if they stopped uploading new videos	0.70
I like FLP a lot	0.63
I look forward to seeing FLP’s next video	0.61
I would like to meet FLP in person	0.61
I think I know more about FLP than others	0.52
I talk about FLP the same way I talk about my friends	0.45
FLP gives me information about games that I did not know before		0.73
Watching FLP’s videos is informative		0.72
FLP teaches me how to beat games or passages in them		0.71
FLP teaches me new things		0.62
Before I buy a video game, I check if FLP has already played it		0.61
I have already bought a video game because FLP recommended it		0.54
I’d like to do the kind of things FLP does			0.76
FLP is the sort of person I want to be like			0.75
Sometimes I wish I could be more like FLP.			0.74
I feel like FLP pays attention to comments left by the audience				0.75
I feel like FLP is looking for contact with their audience				0.73
FLP gives me an opportunity to say my opinion				0.58
Watching FLP’s videos is amusing					0.81
When I watch FLP’s videos, I feel entertained					0.77
FLP can make me laugh					0.74
When I watch FLP’s videos, I have the feeling they know I am watching						0.71
When I watch FLP’s videos, I have the feeling that FLP was aware of me						0.69
FLP plays video games the same way I do							0.76
FLP is similar to me							0.62
FLP plays video games that I also enjoy							0.50
% variance	12.2	11.5	9.2	8.5	8.3	6.3	5.4
Eigenvalue	3.4	3.2	2.6	2.4	2.3	1.8	1.5

Note. FLP = favorite Let’s Player. N = 859 (listwise deletion of missing cases); KMO = .926, total variance explained = 61.4%; rotated factor loadings; loadings <.45 suppressed; all items measured on a five-point Likert-type scale with verbalized endpoints from 1 = “do not agree at all” to 5 = “agree completely.” The item “I feel sorry for FLP when they make a mistake” was deleted due to low overall loadings (<.45).

Results

A principal component analysis was conducted on the 28 PSR dimension items with orthogonal rotation (varimax, see Table 1). Orthogonal rotation was deemed the method of choice due to the goal of identifying maximally distinct dimensions of PSR. The Kaiser–Meyer–Olkin measure verified sampling adequacy (KMO = .926) and Bartlett’s test of sphericity reached significance (χ²(378) = 8655.90, p < .001). One item was deleted due to low overall factor loadings (<.45). Seven components were extracted, explaining in total 61.4% of the variance.

The resulting components largely reflect the dimensional architecture proposed in the literature section, although poor internal consistency (α = .55) was revealed for the component “perceived similarity.” This can be attributed to the wording of the corresponding items, as they capture both aspects of overall character likeness (“My favorite Let’s Player is similar to me”) and similarity in terms of video game choice and play style (e.g., “My favorite Let’s Player plays video games the same way I do”). As a result, correlations between all three items were comparatively small (r < .40), yet significant (p < .01). We decided, however, to avoid the use of a low-consistency index in the data analysis and assessed respondents’ perceived similarity only with regard to overall character likeness, thus employing a single-item measurement (M = 2.79; SD = 1.16). For all other dimensions, mean indices of those items that loaded strongly on the same component were built, as they all showed acceptable consistency values (all α > .70).

To characterize the overall dimensional architecture of fans’ PSR to Let’s Players (RQ1), the relative importance of the seven PSR dimensions was described with a ranking of mean scores (see Table 2). This analysis shows that entertainability, responsiveness, and liking are the salient features of these PSR, while Let’s Players are not so much perceived as informative advisors or idols that respondents wish to identify with. Interestingly, respondents also do not perceive their favorite Let’s Players as particularly similar to themselves and contrary to the assumptions discussed in the literature section, imagined awareness scored relatively low as well.

Table 2.

Mean Scores (M), Standard Deviations (SD), and Scale Consistency (α) for Parasocial Relationship Dimensions.

Dimension	M	SD	α
Entertainability	4.70	0.53	.77
Responsiveness	3.89	0.89	.72
Liking	3.84	0.78	.82
Informativeness	3.24	0.97	.80
Imagined awareness	2.87	1.31	.84
Perceived similarity	2.79	1.16	Single item
Wishful identification	2.66	1.08	.81

Note. N = 859.

A comparison of average scores per dimension between the most frequently named Let’s Players “Gronkh” (n = 214), “PietSmiet” (n = 213), and “LPN05” (n = 127) revealed no discernible patterns deviating from this general psychological architecture, so that the overall dimensional configuration of PSR to Let’s Players turned out stable and generalizable.

Finally, a correlation analysis (Pearson’s r) was conducted to examine the relationship between the frequency of watching the favorite Let’s Player and the individual PSR dimensions (RQ2). Results show that the frequency of watching was significantly and positively related to all seven dimensions (see Table 3), most notably to “liking” and “entertainability.” The more respondents perceived these dimensions as characteristic features of their PSR to Let's Players, the more days a week they watched videos from these YouTubers.

Table 3.

Correlations (Pearson’s r) Between Frequency of Watching and Parasocial Relationship Dimensions.

	Liking	Entertainability	Imagined awareness	Informativeness	Wishful identification	Responsiveness	Perceived similarity
Frequency of watching	.423**	.326**	.218**	.211**	.200**	.196**	.182**

Note. N = 858; **p < .01.

Discussion

The Partially Specific Characteristic of PSR to Let’s Players

The present exploratory survey of fans’ PSR to Let’s Players found interesting similarities and differences to the social connections that fans typically experience with conventional stars whose reputation is resting on their presence in offline media such as television and tabloid newspapers.

Like for most other well-known personalities, PSR to Let’s Players is centered on entertainability and liking. Fans value that their preferred Let’s Player is nice, sympathetic, and fun to be with—the connection to a socially comfortable, mood-improving person appears to be the foundation to Let’s Players’ appeal just as it was found for offline stars and characters (e.g., Hartmann, 2016; Schmid & Klimmt, 2011). In this sense, the assumptions made by Smith et al. (2013) are strongly supported by our findings: Let’s Players’ success indeed seems to depend mostly on their ability to entertain, with player skill and informativeness only playing subordinate roles. However, fans’ perceived skill of the Let’s Player was not extensively covered in our questionnaire and might therefore be a dimension for further inquiries on the subject.

In line with our reasoning on the interactivity features of online media, fans reported high average scores of perceived star responsiveness. The experience and/or expectation that the Let’s Player has reacted to fan communication and/or will do so in the future thus becomes an additional key feature of PSR to online stars and constitutes a noteworthy shift toward less asymmetrical PSR when compared to conventional celebrities. While responsiveness turned out to be very important for fans of Let’s Players, imagined awareness was not rated high on average. We conclude from this finding that Let’s Players who mostly disseminate prerecorded video material are not able to level up the awareness experience of their audiences, as they are bound to the same constraints of mass communication that foster perceived asymmetry and low awareness impressions that conventional celebrities appearing on television have to adhere to (Schramm et al., 2002). The greater perceived reaction capability of Let’s Players thus seems to originate from communication around the actual video content (e.g., through commentary functions or social media communication), but not from their ability to make fans feel like they are being noticed during video consumption. In this regard, the relatively low scores on the dimensions of perceived similarity and wishful identification suggest a certain ambiguity in fans’ perceptions of their favorite Let’s Players: While they do not consider them as far away, elevated, special, or worth idolizing, they simultaneously also do not perceive them as particularly similar to themselves. In this sense, many fans do neither strive to become more like their favorite Let’s Players nor do they see these online stars as “one of them.”

In line with Klimmt et al. (2006), the present study also shows that fans’ frequency of watching their favorite Let’s Player is significantly associated with the intensity of the PSR experience. This can be regarded as first evidence that forming PSR with fans indeed plays a crucial role for Let’s Players’ ability to consistently attract large audiences. Particularly, the comparatively high correlations with the PSR dimensions “liking” and “entertainability” support our earlier conclusion that being perceived as nice, amiable, and funny by viewers is essential for the success of Let’s Players. However, based on our study, it is not possible to determine whether a strong PSR is a result or rather a cause of the frequency of watching these new types of celebrities. Past work on the evolution of PSR suggests a reinforcing spiral process (Gleich, 1997; Slater, 2007) so that initial contact with a media persona elicits a PSR that in turn motivates further use of the persona’s content, which results in intensified PSR. The correlations observed in the present study are likely to root in such spiral dynamics as well, which should be tested further by conducting longitudinal surveys.

Research Perspectives: Parasociality, Let’s Players, and Gaming Cultures

Future research should investigate the techniques through which online stars promote the aforementioned perceptions of responsiveness and reactivity to their fan base, while at the same time positioning themselves as neither too far away nor too close to their fans in order to better understand how online functionalities and their strategic use by stars alter the audience’s parasocial experience. A particular focus should lie on the different types of media that are used to create such a high degree of perceived responsiveness and on the specific role of multichannel strategies in online stars’ communication with their fan base. For instance, social media such as Twitter® or Instagram® may serve Let’s Players to disseminate content that is tailored to function as response to user communication and to create a sense of community beyond the boundaries of YouTube (Blight et al., 2017).

Future research should also explore whether the obtained dimensional architecture of PSR to Let’s Players, especially their relatively low perceived awareness of their audience, persists even if the content is broadcasted live and “in the moment.” Gaming livestreams on platforms such as YouTube or Twitch offer very similar content compared to on-demand Let’s Play videos (Taylor, 2018) and should therefore display similarly high scores of entertainment and liking, but their method of distribution and additional communication features such as live chat might result in substantially higher scores for both perceived awareness and responsiveness (Wulf et al., 2018).

Furthermore, fans’ comparatively low levels of perceived similarity and wishful identification toward their favorite Let’s Players hold interesting implications regarding their often-postulated role as influencers and advisors. Our results raise the question whether fans might regard Let’s Players as more authentic compared to “conventional” celebrities, considering that they are not perceived as larger-than-life entities, yet apparently still as noticeably different from their audiences.

Given the obtained importance of perceived responsiveness, a new perspective on the parasocial experience also warrants further investigation: What happens if fans go through an experience in which their preferred online star directly and individually responds to one of their messages? Although past research shows that YouTubers’ reactions to comments only marginally intensify parasocial reactions (Rihl & Wegener, 2019); this effect needs further empirical investigation in the Let’s Play context. How does a PSR change if “Gronkh” explicitly mentions one of his fans in a video, so that the entire fan community will take notice of this fan–star interaction? In a broader sense, Do the online functionalities and responsive experiences they allow have the potential to generate “critical incidents” with “life-changing” consequences for the intensity or quality of PSR of single fans? Such a perspective could shed new light on one particular element of how Let’s Plays and their creators might shape social life and entire relationship biographies.

The present study draws from prior research on PSR to media personae in general (e.g., Hartmann et al., 2008) and YouTube celebrities in particular (e.g., Kurtin et al., 2018; Rihl & Wegener, 2019) to derive potentially relevant dimensions of the dimensional architecture of PSR to Let's Players. While this approach resulted in fruitful results (see earlier discussion), it cannot be ruled out that PSR to Let's Players consist of specific dimensions that have not yet been identified in prior research and were, thus, not investigated in this study. Therefore, future research should consider the application of qualitative research methods to further explore the particularities of the dimensional architecture of PSR to Let's Players. Such a qualitative study could also help to understand the extent to which the PSR to these celebrities and their dimensional architecture is subject to change over time.

Regarding further potential limitations, the current study rests on a self-selected German sample. Respondents overwhelmingly named German Let’s Players as their favorites, and thus, the implications of this limitation are twofold: Do fans from other countries show a similar preference for online stars of matching nationality and/or origin? And do PSR between fans and online celebrities in different cultural and geographical contexts lead to different dimensional structures of PSR? Studies focusing on international audiences and their PSR to a broad set of internationally known Let’s Players should examine these questions further.

One particularly interesting approach for follow-up research should focus on the specific importance of Let’s Players’ references to video games, gaming, and gaming culture. The obtained profile of PSR suggests that fans value the entertainability and authenticity of Let’s Players. Thus, content analyses are required to describe how Let’s Players generate entertainment value from performing video gameplay (e.g., making jokes about their own failures while gaming) and how they use the game involvement that they share with their fans to foster impressions of responsiveness. Such analyses (e.g., Kerttula, 2019) would complement the current audience-focused approach and improve our understanding of how gaming lifestyle and culture are negotiated and reproduced by Let’s Players who address and serve their fan base. Research should, for example, examine Let’s Players’ potential to shape game culture by engaging audiences that consist of gamers and non-gamers alike who come together to watch others play—not because they are primarily attracted by the appeal of the game itself but rather by the personal characteristics and qualities of the person playing it (Radde-Antweiler, Waltemathe, & Zeiler, 2014). In other words: How can (or should) our understanding of a gaming culture that is so often defined simply by the consumption of video games (Shaw, 2010) change when video game consumption itself is changing in such fundamental ways, allowing audiences to move away from actively playing themselves and more toward “interpassive” consumption (Fuchs, 2017) that features both passive video reception as well as (inter-)active community participation? In this sense, we also suggest to adopt a “paratext” perspective on Let’s Plays and to consider these videos as user-created or “unauthorized” paratexts (Consalvo, 2007; Genette, 1997; Jones, 2008) that serve as additional content surrounding and accompanying the original medium (the video game) and expand the frame that influences video game reception, much like other forms of paratext, such as game reviews, wikis, or game-specific forums.

Future research should, therefore, also investigate how Let’s Players as the gurus of digital gaming culture attract and serve loyal audiences through parasocial and digital bonds and how these new social aspects shape the shared construction of gamer community and culture—or, as Peña (2018) puts it, how “audience and players co-construct playthroughs and make choices together” (p. 138). A particular focus should also lie on how co-construction and interpassive consumption shape fan communities and fan cultures and how fandom is performed and expressed in the Let’s Play context (e.g., Hills, 2002).

Finally, with regard to PSR as a theoretical concept of audience involvement in mass communication research (Brown, 2015; Klimmt et al., 2006), the current exploratory study indicates pathways for understanding the implications of the transformation of classic mass communication through online technology and media from a user’s perspective. Online platforms seem to bring about a new quality of celebrities who generate their parasocial appeal rather through responsiveness and approachability (Beers Fägersten, 2017). The higher degree of personalization and customization of media environments to individuals’ needs and preferences that internet-based communication facilitates seems thus also to apply to celebrities and their social–psychological function for the audiences. Hence, future parasocial theory should address the shift in “power” between celebrity and fan in times of digitalized (mass) communication in order to cover the fundamental change of the media landscape that is emerging from social media and online video platforms. Clearly, Let’s Players should serve as primary example in future studies on this possible trend in the psychology, sociology, and economy of fame and fandom.

Footnotes

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

ORCID iDs

Julian Kreissl

Daniel Possler

Notes

Author Biographies

Julian Kreissl (M. A. in Media Management) is a research associate and doctoral candidate at Hanover University of Music, Drama and Media (Germany) at the Department of Journalism and Communication Research (IJK). His research focuses on character-driven entertainment, particularly video games and related media, on opportunities and risks associated with new forms of digital work, and on research ethics in communication science.

Daniel Possler (M. A. in Media Management) is a research associate and doctoral candidate at Hanover University of Music, Drama and Media (Germany) at the Department of Journalism and Communication Research (IJK). His research focuses on uses and effects of interactive digital media, particularly video games and interactive forms of journalism (data journalism), as well as on the use of computational methods in communication science.

Christoph Klimmt received his Ph.D. in Communication from Hanover University of Music, Drama, and Media (Germany) in 2004. He worked as an Assistant Professor of Online Communication at the Johannes Gutenberg University of Mainz (2007–2010) and returned to Hanover University of Music, Drama and Media to serve as Associate Professor. In 2013, he was promoted to Full Professor. Klimmt served as department head from 2011 to 2017. Since 2011, he is one of the associate editors of the Journal of Media Psychology. His primary research interests are uses and effects of new media, entertainment research, and public communication of science and technology.

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