The interactive synopticon: Participatory visibility and public disruption in IRL live streaming

Abstract

IRL (“in-real-life”) live streaming turns public space into an interactive broadcast structured by live chat, monetization tools, and real-time engagement metrics. At its extreme, “deviant IRL” involves streamers staging public provocation as content. This article asks under what conditions participatory visibility converts being watched from a mechanism of discipline into an incentive for public norm violation. Examining two critical cases (Vitaly Zdorovetskiy and “Johnny Somali”) through live stream content analysis of archived video, chat logs, news coverage, and institutional records, I develop the concept of the interactive synopticon, in which the many not only watch the few, but intermittently steer them through live prompts, paid text-to-speech, and metrified feedback. I identify three interlocking mechanisms—live audience steering, a reinforcement-amplification loop, and lagged accountability—that explain how participatory visibility generates short-run escalation while producing durable records enabling institutional sanction, with implications for platform governance and the uneven distribution of sanction across race, nationality, and gender.