Agency, voice and prosopopoeia: SeeBotsChat and the projection of kinship

Abstract

This article examines a chatbots’ duet, a viral video stream that occurred in early 2017. SeeBotsChat happened online, across numerous different platforms but mainly on Twitch.tv. This article analyses the events concerning the streaming, exploring the relations between the bots’ synthetic voices and the human listeners, focusing on how the audience enacted forms of affective care with the bots and their voices. Drawing on analysis of projected persona, narrative, prosopopoeia and bot design, my investigation of this event will try to understand how the bots’ persona appears, what their voices entail, and if, and how, the audiences engage with them in forms of intra-action.