Why are Reaction Videos so Popular? | An Analysis
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 25 ก.พ. 2020
- What would the internet be without controversy, amirite?
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The reason I like reaction vidios is the same reason we like to show stuff we like to our friends, it feels good when other people like the same stuff we like.
Outstanding explanation!
I used to have time in my life where i could share music or learn about music with others, that's sadly hasn't been the case for a long time in certain sense. So for me reaction videos help to feel little less lonely at times but also had made me discover so many songs and bands that i can in future share to others (not through reaction videos i make as i'm sure i wouldn't be good person to do them) but to at least share to my couple friends i have (online)
That's a very nice perspective! Online communities are honestly so important. I'm glad you found your way to share the things you love with your friends
Couple years late, but I hope the ever surging loneliness crisis(and everything that comes with it) has made you reconsider the importance of online "communities". There is no such thing. Such notions are toxic and only serve to profit some party involved.
Given your age this might be hard to wrap your head around, but human beings are still hard wired through evolution to interact in real tangible space on this planet.. We haven't evolved past that yet no matter how "online" we are. You can see the consequences of thinking we are all around you...
Maybe you think I'm just a dick but maybe you understand what I'm trying to get across, and if so, what is the point of enticing (or trying to) thousands of people to watch you react to something? Anything beyond profit?
Your explanations and the way you expose them are great!
I liked this video very much and I think you should do more of this kind - analysing things twisted to the channel.
That was really good!
Thank you! I really enjoy making this sort of meta content, so whenever I get an idea, I'll definitely do it again. Thinking about a sort of industry/history kind of format, if that's not already overdone, but I'm taking suggestions too ;)
@@Fuchswinter
Since you commented a few times that you want to help unknown artists, I would like to give you a few suggestions. A few bands and musicians that are - to my opinion - very very good, professionals, but haven't signed with labels because they won't to keep their independence do they continue being rather unknown. They live financially only through their fans support, mainly through Patreon and Kickstarter campaigns.
For each band I will give you here, I will give you only one link to one song, so as to have a first taste of them, but of course, they have a lot of great songs and the fans will tell you more after each first reaction.
I hope you will enjoy them!
So here is the list:
1) The Warning (Dust to Dust, live at Lunario) (Hard rock) (Mexico)
th-cam.com/video/TeIbG8nkOiU/w-d-xo.html
2) Motion Device (Thick Skin, the official video) (Progressive metal) (Canada)
th-cam.com/video/dhaMrV9Xc1U/w-d-xo.html
3) Liliac (Chain of thorns, the official video) (Hard rock) (USA, originating from Romania)
th-cam.com/video/IpRgs4UNeso/w-d-xo.html
4) Spinning Jenny (Hey Jenny, the official video) (Rock) (USA)
th-cam.com/video/FeCRmbLqz6k/w-d-xo.html
5) Gold Frankincense & Myrrh (The other side, album version) (Metal) (USA)
th-cam.com/video/Zg_Oyk4CTrw/w-d-xo.html
6) Not your Girlfrenz (Never stop, the official video) (Rock) (USA)
th-cam.com/video/bOMw3uj_kZE/w-d-xo.html
7) Andrei Cerbu & The Rock Biscuits (Funky Girl, the official video) (Blues/Rock) (Romania)
th-cam.com/video/JkApU4gKPBg/w-d-xo.html
8) Jadyn Rylee (Beaches of Tofino, the official video) (pop) (Canada)
th-cam.com/video/eCRLRjuMnII/w-d-xo.html
Thanks a lot!
Personally I like reaction videos to music, when they actually serve a purpose and contain valuable content like an analysis of the musicianship, the singing, stage presence, the meaning of the song with an analysis of the lyrics.
Also I find it really fascinating do know how other cultures react to things are not used to from different cultures. Every country has their own language, sports, pop culture, foods, memes, jokes, slang, holidays, etc. It's great to see what happens when they try one of those things from another culture, or when two groups from different cultures sit down and talk about their differences or even just explore those differences in one way or another.
I will agree that a lot of these song reaction videos are crap. It's not good enough to just react to it. They need to offer some kind of analysis or critique, or some other kind of information the viewer may not have known.
Culture comparisons are a great point! I haven't done much of that yet (except The Hu and Babymetal, most other bands are European...) I'll think about that, I love watching that kind of video as well.
Mentioning "info the viewer may not know" reminds me in times of the internet, it's surprisingly hard to do that. Most obvious info is found by a quick google search (though not everyone bothers), so sometimes you end up repeating yourself.
I think there's a major difference between reactions focused on analysis and comparison and those focused on entertainment alone, because they have different goals. Videos reacting to different cultures or funny videos relate to emotions and connection, whereas analysis videos are more focused on logic and facts. The audiences overlap, but aren't necessarily the same.
@@Fuchswinter as an American I always find it really interesting to find out how people from other countries like Germany react to our ways of life. I would love to do something like sit down with someone from Germany and trade meals, hand each other our favorite albums, talk about what everyday life is like, things that make us happy or sad or angry in everyday life in our culture.
For example I didn't know this but, I met a girl who spent a lot of time in Germany because her parents apparently moved there later on in her childhood, because one of them was originally from Germany and they decided to go back and live there permanently. However she moved back here when she was old enough to live on her own. She may have moved back to Germany, I'm not sure. Anyway, she was telling me some things about what it was like to live there, and the thing I remember the most was she told me that there are people who still wear the Nazi symbol, and if drivers catch them doing that, they'll get run off the road. That's crazy!
@@havoc5319 same, I'd love to share experiences with people from other countries!
That sounds all really dramatic haha, it's true that Nazi symbols are forbidden, but I can't really think of why anyone would wear them anyway so...
It's always small stuff that surprises me most, like what supermarkets look like, the way cities are structured differently, money (coins, especially, you have a different counting system than we do!)
@@Fuchswinter I'm really interested in the sausages and meats you have over there. I know that your country is famous for those. If I can ever travel abroad I would love to sample the food in Germany! and not the places for tourists. I would actually love to sit down and someone's home to a family meal and experienced a real German meal. Kind of stuff that everyday people eat every day.
@@havoc5319 oh Yeah Germany has a ton of different meat. Very good stuff. Though I'm much more a fan of all the different bread we have. I love bread :,D it's the best
Thanks for the thoughtful video
For me, I've rediscovered bands that I have listened to before, by seeing them through the eyes of someone new.
Also, all reactors are not made equal. Basic tech quality, sure, but after that, it's all about individual personalities. Some of my favorite reaction channels are niche with only a few subscribers, while some of the biggest channels annoy me. It's about finding a person you like, and them discovering cool music, etc.
That's an interesting perspective! I've also heard that some people watch reactors to get a second opinion after listening to songs alone first.
I do agree about the personality thing. I watched a lot of Let's Plays in the past and the personality is a HUGE influence.
(Also drop some of those niche channels, I wanna support otehr small creators)
@@FuchswinterThree that leap to mind are NeonskePetunije (two Serbian women who react to music, mostly metal), MetalBirb (mostly metal reactions, obviously), and Enoma (an Indian couple who reacts to every genre you can think of)
Fuchswinter I like your videos because you actually analyse the video and talk about it in detail. A lot of reactors just watch and that's it -- to me that is boring. Your videos have much more content than most! Mach weiter so und noch mir Sabaton bitte!
Thank you very much! I try my best to put substance in my videos, even though sometimes that's surprisingly difficult (because brain weirdness and language). More Sabaton is coming, don't you worry!
For me it's to discover news from metal with the most historical comment if it's neutral of course. But above all discover new music that I don't usually listen to. The interest is this precise point. I think press generally is a point of view with an opinion and watch someone with a non professionnal opinion comfort our own opinion. Sometimes I don't like but with enthusiasm reactions and a historical explaination, the opinion can change. It's only human reason. This is my opinion of course.... !
This is very interesting, because I firmly believe no report is ever neutral. Even historical accounts are biased - the more sides of something we discover, the more neutral it becomes, but we can never know how much information we truly are lacking.
I see this a lot when history reports on people who did not confirm to standards (e.g. heterosexuality), where historians can go to ridiculous lengths to explain away what doesn't fit their world view.
I realize this sounds kinda like a conspiracy theory, but there's just a lot we don't know. What truly is neutral are usually physics, chemistry and the likes, but it's humans who go on to interpret this data.
When someone talks about something enthusiastically, we're more likely to be convinced, which again isn't neutral. But that's just human nature! In itself, there's nothing wrong with it, but it can be exploited.
Thanks for the long, insightful comment!
Theory: It makes watching youtube more social? At least it has the sense of sharing something together. I think this is very human reason explaining the lure of reaction videos.
I just started reacting and I’ll say this. I’ve been watching reaction videos for years, for the same reasons I’ve been watching ESPN hosts sit and give their review, opinions and reactions to sports games I’ve already seen. Or why I listen to radio shows that talk about things I care about. Discussion, and validation on topics and things we enjoy are simply extremely enjoyable. You can almost never turn to your parents, friends or schoolmates and discuss these matters because everyone enjoys different things. But reaction videos are a central hub, a place to go and see people experience things you enjoy. It’s like when you show your best friend, you favorite meme, TikTok or song. It’s like going to a sports bar, where everyone there is talking about your favorite teams. No one dislikes reaction videos. It’s nearly impossible to lack that aspect of human nature that drives us to want to be part of a conversation and community. That’s why you can find popular viral reactions on every single aspect of entertainment. Make a video about how much you hate reaction videos and you will still bring together a community of like minded people. And experiencing someone’s first steps into something or first experience with something you enjoy. As old as giving someone became drinking age, their first drink, or taking a friend to their first concert, or even taking your new girlfriend or boyfriend to you favorite restaurant. This is what companies the big media figured out a long time ago.
I think theory 2 is accurate, Im lonely, and people i meet don't typically have the same interests, seeing a person enjoy and react to something i also enjoyed is entertaining, when a reaction is acted it loses apeal for me.
I'm watching your reaction toward...these reaction videos...arrgh, I can't get away from it!
Last year I was asking myself the same question. Not only
did I come across your two main points (mirror neurons and community) but there
was something else also;
With regards to community, it is easy to frame this
as a positive thing. However, an alternative perspective on this is that people
realised the internet contains a vast number of ‘lonely loosers’ (no offence
meant). People who in the real world don’t have much social life or friends.
Thus, they seek a sense of community online. Looked at in this way, you start
to see that to some extent these channels work by exploiting vunerable people. Self-validation - basically, people like
something, and hearing that other people also think it is good, makes them feel
good. This is because the brain releases some kind of hormone as a response
(think its call dopamine). So then watching these kind of videos essentially becomes
a drug addiction. After awhile people need to watch another video in order to
get that fix which makes them feel better.
I’m kinda conflicted on the whole thing. On one hand I enjoy
a lot of these types of videos and enjoy certain channels who strive for quality
content. I also normally believe the market should decide the value of things.
However, if you think about it, as a society we currently underpay nurses,
doctors, teachers ect who work 10+ hours a day in very difficult jobs. Yet some
nobody on youtube who’s talent is reacting to 3 videos of actual talent per day,
can have a relatively small following, say 6000 people, get them to pay just $1
per month (which isn’t that much). This would mean that person is earning $6000
per month. That’s Fing insane.
The value proposition needs to change so that it is less
immoral. How you do that though I’m not sure. Hopefully the market corrects the
situation by making these vids go out of fashion, or the system is modified to
include checks and balances, which mean you need to have much bigger channels
(e.g. million+ subscribers) before being able to earn any kind of significant
money.
The other problem is the way in which reaction video culture
could start to impact on the mucic created or the perception of what is good
and what isn’t. I think this could incentivise bands to have more gimmiks, so
that the music or video has more potentially as a reaction video. Or, a good
song but without much reaction potential all of a sudden becomes irrelevant. These
are bad things for the prosperity of quality music.
Wow, what a long comment!
On the one hand, I agree with you - judging a video by how well it can be reacted to is not a stadard we should strive for. Looking at videos like Nightwish, or Fleshgod Apocalpyse, which rely heavily on details, sure you can react to that, but te real value lies in the repetitive watching and figuring out what the director meant by all the small snippets you don't see the first time around.
I'm somewhat torn on the internet community thing. On the one hand, it's a great opportunity for people with mental illnesses or disabilities that prevent them from going out to keep in touch. Hell, even introverts with small social batteries can profit from it. In the current pandemic, even introverts like me get lonely, so watching videos can help. (Though watching videos with friends is better, even with a video chat.) But I agree that using it as a full subsitute for human contact can't be healthy, just from a neuropsychological point of view.
I'm not with you on the market thing though. Historically, letting the market decide something just really doesn't work e.g. rent prices. It just excerbarates existing inequality and opens the path for rich people getting richer and poor people getting poorer.
In terms of videos - Patreon and Kofi and the likes (which I assume you are referencing with 6000 Dollar by 6k subscribers) are absolutely voluntary, and let's be real, people are cheap. There's fantastic content creators out there that struggle to make ends meet because people don't want to pledge even something as small as 1 dollar, so realistically speaking, you need WAY more than 6k subscribers to earn even a fraction of that amount.
I also want to add something that pisses me off. There is a serious lack of quality when it comes to what TH-camrs choose to react to. Most of them just follow fads of what they should be reacting to based on what a hundred people already have reacted to, so they got to do it too. Le sigh. I'll request them to react to something that actually require a brain cell to appreciate and they completely ignore me every time. I swear to god if I see one more damn reaction video to Nightwish! Enough already, react to something else!
They all choose what to react to based on what gets requested the most. The problem with that is your falling into the same problem I just mentioned. Quantity over quality. You're falling into that mainstream hole, where you're just reacting to the same crap everyone else is. Instead, they should be looking for requests that are more thoughtfully written, and requests that show intelligence or knowledge of a subject. Pick more obscure and unique requests!
In general, I agree with you (reading this right after doing another Nightwish reaction oops).
The problem is that, as I mentioned, the market doesn't appreciate obscure suggestions. If something doesn't have already a lot of fans, and YOU don't already have a fanbase, reactions to obscure music won't generate views. (Though it's also relying on the algorithm, my Powerwolf video is blocked nearly everywhere so meh :/)
To be entirely honest, I do this purposefully. I try to put in a few smaller bands, but before I don't have enough followers so even obscure bands generate views I wait and try to get some attention to my channel by more popular videos. I like to think my content evolves and becomes better with time as well and hopefully, some day I can help out smaller bands by giving them exposure, because I know how hard it is to get noticed.
@@Fuchswinter I get what you're saying but I'm talking about reaction videos posted by those who already have huge fan bases. I would think that at that point they would try introducing their fanbase to some other great stuff, who don't have have much of a following but deserve to, but they never do. Instead it just gets worse and they react to stuff that's more dumbed down than the last... Until I'm sitting here thinking wtf.... Why are they reacting to this garbage when there's so many quality songs by people with true talent?
I saw a few of them doing this a while ago. They were reacting to some hip-hop and rap videos (genres I have no issue with) that were just really trashy unintelligent crap. I immediately unsubscribed from them. At that point I was offended by their choice in what to react to, when there are so many extremely talented bands all over the world who thoughtfully produce great music and do everything right, but for some reason fall through the cracks and just don't get recognized even though they really deserve to be, while idiots like that who have the power to help these bands shine the spotlight on trashy music videos by bands with no talent, no intellect, and about as much class as a wet fart.
It's offensive, after seeing how hard these great band struggle, the blood sweat and tears that goes into trying to make their dream happen, often making great sacrifices and sometimes even practically living on the street, all to achieve their dream. I mean just go visit Nashville, there's so many bands there that are so extremely talented... I've heard many people say they've seen incredible bands perform there and wonding why the hell they were playing in that dump. I'll tell you why. It's because some jackass put the spotlight on some crappy no talent band instead of them. I find that in most cases, those who have that power don't have the class or intelligence to use it. I want to offend those people, because these great musicians who have all this overflowing talent deserve an explanation, why they got passed over for a band who isn't anywhere close to their level.
Because once you've seen something, you want other people to look at it too.
Reaction videos are the laziest form of internet video, same goes for boxing videos. Real signs of societal decay.
Love this! We should talk!
Great video....new sub here 🙏
Thank you! I also have a newer video with more depth and sources, if you're interested :)
@@Fuchswinter Yes I would be interested I will have a look on your page for it 👍
Реакция на видео,носителей другого языка,показывает,что эмоции людей, живущих в разных странах,идентичны..Это даёт ощущение, сопричастности человечеству в целом,поэтому они так популярны.. ИМХО..
its validation. they provide almost 99% positive validation. creds help. Julliard grad loves linkin park just like meee! dude who only ever heard hip hop bro discovered RATM and hates the govt now! stand-in for your wife only listens to enya, loves that you sent her 20bux to listen to RUSH and will definitely be finishing that album when you send another 20/track.