The Chatbox Is a Casino: Speculation and Attention on Livestreams
Insight session by Idil Galip
We often hear that attention is the currency of the internet, but on alternative livestreaming platforms it is being used in new ways.
This talk is a guided screenwalk of Kick, a streaming platform owned by the company behind the crypto-gambling site Stake. Using a step-by-step analysis of the platform’s interface (Light et al., 2018), I move through a livestream to show how attention and gambling are tied together through speculation, the act of betting on an uncertain outcome. Following Komporozos-Athanasiou’s (2022) idea of speculative communities, I treat the chatbox as a speculative technology: a tool that keeps people watching by making every moment feel uncertain, volatile and potentially rewarding. Here, paying attention and placing a bet become almost the same act. This is “chatbox sociality”: a condition in which taking part, feeling invested and speculating with money become entangled. Viewers become “chat”, a collective voice whose mood cannot be separated from its financial stakes. Speculation then extends to attention itself, as memecoins and prediction markets turn viewers’ bonds with streamers into a way of selling financial products. (Based on Galip and Maragkou, First Monday 31(5), 2026.)
Each insight session comprises two individual presentations by two different speakers. In this session, Idil Galip and Femke Bijker will share their insights on two different topics.