Adapting the Empty Orchestra: the Performance of Play in Karaoke

Abstract

Karaoke is a unique social game of performance play that is easily adapted into existing play forms and play communities. In this paper, we examine how karaoke is encountered by players, how the game is structured, and how karaoke is adapted by play communities by evaluating the ludic elements of karaoke and the playful methods players use to engage with the game, ending with critical examples of playful adaptations. The success of the informal play experience of karaoke can inform the design of more intentional social play. We argue that karaoke is so adaptable because of its ubiquitousness, its relative lack of explicit rules, the flexibility of is implicit rules, the personal nature of its goals, and the variability of its primary mode of play. This creates a loose structure that can take in other structures, be incorporated by them, or even completely consumed by them, yet remain recognizable.