Social VR platforms serve as an emergent venue for live performance, enabling co-presence and real-time interaction among distributed performers and audiences within shared virtual environments. Live performances, such as comedy, rely on subtle social cues between performers and audiences, which are missing in VR. However, it remains unclear how comedians utilize avatar-mediated cues in social VR. We conducted semi-structured interviews and observations with 23 virtual comedians on VRChat. Results revealed that virtual comedians transformed their limited nonverbal expressiveness into performative opportunities through intentional control and exaggeration. Additionally, a distinctive culture emerged around context-appropriate emoji reactions from audiences, while challenges such as audio latency and moderation against trolling were highlighted. Our findings advance understanding of how performers creatively adapt to expressive constraints in avatar-mediated settings. We further demonstrate how challenges in performer-audience interaction and moderation provide design insights for systems enhancing feedback visibility and sustain community norms without restricting creative expression.

翻译：社交虚拟现实平台作为现场表演的新兴场所，使分散的表演者和观众能够在共享虚拟环境中实现共同在场和实时互动。喜剧等现场表演依赖于表演者与观众之间微妙的社会线索，而这些线索在虚拟现实中往往缺失。然而，喜剧演员如何利用虚拟化身介导的线索在社交虚拟现实中表演仍不明确。本研究通过对VRChat平台上的23位虚拟喜剧演员进行半结构化访谈和观察，发现虚拟喜剧演员通过有意识的控制和夸张，将有限的非语言表达能力转化为表演机会。此外，观众根据情境使用表情符号回应的独特文化逐渐形成，而音频延迟和针对恶意行为的审核等挑战也凸显出来。我们的研究结果深化了对表演者如何在虚拟化身介导环境中创造性适应表达限制的理解，并进一步表明表演者与观众互动及审核方面的挑战为系统设计提供了启示：在增强反馈可见性和维持社区规范的同时，不应限制创造性表达。