Who Is ‘Easily Influenced’? Gendered Susceptibility, Consumer Agency, and Live-Commerce Communication in Indonesia

Live-stream commerce is not merely a sales technology but a communicative environment where hosts and viewers exchange questions, demonstrations, evaluations, and persuasive claims in real time. Drawing on 155 open-ended responses from Indonesian Shopee Live viewers, primarily in Greater Bandung, we examine how audiences interpret persuasion and identify those they consider ‘easily influenced.’ Theory-informed qualitative content analysis and a critical reading of self-other categorization reveal that viewers weigh promotions, demonstrations, urgency, reviews, and price comparisons while often portraying themselves as careful decision-makers. Women, mothers, younger people, and Generation Z also appeared as socially recognizable figures of vulnerability. We call this susceptibility boundary work: claiming consumer competence through distinctions that attribute greater susceptibility to others. Yet viewers also question claims, compare alternatives, delay purchases, and refuse offers, challenging assumptions that these groups are inherently impulsive. Live commerce is thus an interpersonal, platform-mediated setting where agency, persuasion, and gendered judgments of consumer rationality are negotiated.