During my septoplasty convalescence I spent a lot of time doing nothing. I had optimistically planned that I would spend the time reading, or at least playing video games; but when your nose is sore, bloody, and full of plastic packing, the constant pain and exhaustion leads you to seek entertainment that requires no thought. So I ended up watching a lot of YouTube. More specifically, I ended up watching a lot of reaction videos. For those of you (perhaps blissfully) unaware, reaction videos are videos where you watch the host watch, listen to, read, or otherwise experience something else, normally in real time. These are extremely popular because they are relatively low-effort to make, requiring a minimal set-up and no fussy production values; and the videos tend to be long, giving ample opportunities for monetization (i.e., ads); and (most importantly) easy for the algorithm to index and recommend.
In some ways the lowly reaction video belongs to the high-brow tradition of criticism and analysis. A scholarly monograph on the works of Faulkner could be seen as a reaction by a fan; a New Yorker movie review is likewise a record of the writer’s experience watching. More recently, since around the early 2010’s there have been “Let’s Play” videos in which a host plays, and comments on, a video game. These can be demonstrations of skills or interesting play styles, but they’re just as often a chance to watch someone’s shocked reaction to the big twist in Bioshock1 for the 52nd time. But the modern react-to-anything trend really got started with the pandemic, like so many other stuck-at-home-on-the-internet pastimes.
Some reaction videos fall into the category of “professional” commentary. For example, an M.D. might discuss the accuracy of an episode of The Pitt, or a Michelin-rated chef might critique the techniques used in an episode of The Bear, or a lawyer might count the number of criminal offenses in a Fast and Furious installment and tally up a suitable prison sentence. These sorts of videos are what attracted me to reactions in the first place, and they remain my favorites, because I love watching experts bullshit about stuff that doesn’t really warrant analysis. Beyond these, there are long-form video essays that provide deeper analysis and historic or cultural context for a work of media, or obsessive three-hour fan videos whose recap is much longer than the episode or movie being discussed.
But the vast majority of reactions out in the wilds of the Internet today are simply those showing John and Jane Does respond to stuff. It’s a way of vicariously enjoying the pleasure of seeing or hearing something for the first time—the main criterion is that the reactor have never been previously exposed to the subject: a virgin. These videos can be fun, particularly if the movie/tv show/song is a work for which you have a lot of fondness, or one that none of your friends or family is interested in. But let’s be real, it’s a form of emotional voyeurism. If you look at the histogram of what the most-watched parts of a reaction are, you will see predictable spikes where a big reveal happens, like the end of The Sixth Sense2, or two characters have their first romantic encounter, or the hero drops the movie title into their dialogue.
This communal catharsis is something that disturbs me a little as an autistic person. Neurotypical folk are very big on shared emotional states, on group opinion, and these can feel to me a bit like coerced assent. I guess it’s akin to the experience of watching a performance with an audience, but even that also can feel onerous to me—like I have to constantly monitor and adjust my responses to fit the group. For most non-autistic viewers, of course, the concurrence is the attraction, and I can appreciate that emotional reactions can provide a feeling of community, even if that community is an artificial one consisting of comments by dogeball28319 and IamFartGuy.
All in all, these videos are a pretty harmless, albeit frivolous, way to waste time online. However, there’s a category of reactions that are performative in way that skeeves me the hell out. These are ones in which the theme is “member of specific generational, national, or racial group reacts to something outside of their culture—and likes it!” These videos have titles like “Gen Zer listens to Led Zeppelin for the first time: mind blown!” or “Guy who only ever listens to rap cries real tears over the Carpenters” or “I never got the hype about Star Wars until I watched every movie in release order: some thoughts.” Like a Puritan conversion experience or a Congressperson apologizing for an affair, the reactor publicly performs the scales falling from their eyes: they have been missing out, but now they’re down.
These videos are pure confirmation bias, assuring viewers that their tastes and/or childhoods were the best ever. Comments are patronizing toward the reactor: “yes, kiddo, this was before fancy digital engineering, when artists could only record on adhesive tape using tin can microphones—back when music was still real.” Or they are selective in their nostalgia: “Imagine living back in 1985, when every single movie produced was a stone cold classic, and also gas was so cheap they gave it away for free out of garden hoses.”
But the weirdest comments of all are the ones that are pure pathos, in which the commentator claims a special connection to the movie/program/book/song by virtue of their own trauma. “This song was my mother’s favorite song that I played to her every day she lay in hospice wasting away to Glaubner’s disease.” “This movie was the last movie I saw with my dad before he joined the cult.” These comments are so pervasive and the misfortunes they describe are so severe that I assume they’re just made up, but I’m not sure if this is some sort of extremely dry humor, or if it’s some sort of kayfabe at work, or if the poster is enjoying the emotional response they get in the form of likes. I guess some could be real? Online discourse is problematic.
Anyway, join me next time on the blog when I read On the Road for the first time and learn that Boomer culture is the best, actually.
- Spoiler for a 19-year-old game: there’s a big twist. ↩︎
- Spoiler for a 27-year-old movie: there’s another big twist. ↩︎
