Luxastra by InnTale: Intersections of Serial Storytelling, Play and Social Media Entertainment on YouTube Italia
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.60923/issn.2280-9481/22920Keywords:
Luxastra, YouTube, Social media entertainment, Seriality, Tabletop Role-Playing GamesAbstract
This article analyzes Luxastra (2019–2024), a web series by the Italian YouTube channel InnTale, as an emblematic case study of the intersection between serial storytelling, tabletop role-playing games (RPGs), and social media entertainment. Adopting an approach borrowed from television studies, the analysis is structured on three main levels: the series’ production aspects; its textual and narrative characteristics; and its dynamics of audience reception and participation. It thus aims to highlight how Luxastra reworks RPG languages to construct a complex transmedia narrative, supported by community-oriented communication strategies and a process of remediation that integrates playful, audiovisual, and digital aesthetics. At the same time, the investigation highlights the critical issues InnTale has encountered as an independent production on YouTube: amid algorithmic uncertainties and tensions between creative freedom and economic sustainability, the case of Luxastra reveals the potentialities and limitations of grassroots seriality, raising questions about the compatibility between complex narrative forms and the logic of social media platforms. Finally, the article confirms the extension of television studies to contemporary digital media as a necessary and virtuous approach, capable of grasping the interdependencies between aesthetics, production models, and engagement dynamics even in works outside the circuits of the more established cultural industries.References
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