Chat rooms, and more recently technologies like Discord and Telegram, are popular because you’re not expected to participate in the conversations that are being

Chat rooms, and more recently technologies like Discord and Telegram, are popular because you’re not expected to participate in the conversations that are being held. You can just lurk. There are lots of people who like to wait for an opportunity to jump in to a conversation, and traditional chat platforms facilitate that very well. This part of the article really got my attention and I wonder if there's a better way to re-imagine the chat-lurker dynamic for VR. The author suggests opacity and free looking but I wonder if there's a better way to convey a crowd of people who are supposed to lurk. That way you get a visual representation of how many people are in a chat. What immediately comes to mind for me are: 1. theater/stadium seating 2. rap battle format(a group of people in a spontaneous circle around 2 main speakers 3. Some sort of Oxford debate(https://www.uscourts.gov/about-federal-courts/educational-resources/about-educational-outreach/activity-resources/oxford https://www.uscourts.gov/about-federal-courts/educational-re...) app so you can listen in on people with strong opinions.