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taufan99

Personal reaction vids; thoughts on them?

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Throughout the history of online video entertainment, one genre has particularly evolved into a popular category. Yes, personal reaction videos. Some of you may remember the React channel featuring random people reacting to certain things, however nowadays they have a spiritual successor consisting of single persons reacting on things considered awesome (usually a content creator/gamer/etc. towards a trailer).

 

What are your thoughts and do you have favorite videos/video creators of this genre?

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It's been interesting to watch the genre grow. As far as I can remember the whole thing started with filming people's reactions to the "2 Girls 1 Cup" video. For the most part the only reaction videos I watch are probably better described as live commentary (for events like E3).

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I think there’s a line to be drawn between giving commentary that adds a new layer to the experience and shameless cash-in reaction videos. I enjoy something like MST3K even though it’s technically a “reaction” sort of content, similarly I like it when people do response videos where they bring their own perspective or whatever to the table.
 

What I hate are the idiots who put the original content in a little corner of their stupid webcam recording of them just laughing or being idiots who add nothing to the experience, just using name recognition of current popular content to get clicks.

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1 hour ago, Biodegradable said:

Useless, cancerous garbage that cashes in with YouTube adsense off the backs of the people who made the videos they react to while giving nothing back. You're literally just watching a video of some other asshole literally doing the same thing you're doing. They are one of the worst things to ever happen to the website and I'm glad it's a... "genre" that's dying out now. 

100% agree. Too bad the channels featuring this kind of content have millions of subs. Well, at least some of them. 

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2 minutes ago, Good-Old said:

100% agree. Too bad the channels featuring this kind of content have millions of subs. Well, at least some of them. 

 

Most assuredly, but they're not nearly as insurmountable as they were just a few years ago. Back in 2015-2016, they were EVERYWHERE. I am grateful that, as a trend, they're fucking dead.

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Anyone remember those "reply girls," and how they pretty much forced Youtube to rewrite their rules from the ground up? I'm pretty sure when these came along Youtube just said "oh so it's like a hydra. we give up then."

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Just now, SiFi270 said:

Anyone remember those "reply girls," and how they pretty much forced Youtube to rewrite their rules from the ground up? I'm pretty sure when these came along Youtube just said "oh so it's like a hydra. we give up then."

 

You can thank them for murdering the old Video Response feature the site used to have.

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Ill get back to you with a video giving my thoughts on this jk.

 

Reaction videos are only useful in tech related sectors where a general discussion is held, such as the Digital Foundry Direct. Because there are multiple points of view, you get a multitude of nuances.

 

So it has its purposes. But the general reaction video? Nah. Usually th Youtubers in question are way too excited on things and its clearly ment for a younger fanbase.

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1 minute ago, Biodegradable said:

You can thank them for murdering the old Video Response feature the site used to have.

I don't think that one in particular was much of a loss. I remember seeing a video response to something that was just a few seconds of someone's hand giving a thumbs up.

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Hating on Personal React creators kinda became just as cool and trendy as React videos themselves.

 

I personally lean towards people who React to Music, I always love hearing their thoughts and views on a specific song/album/artist. Lost in Vegas being the one i go to the most.

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3 hours ago, Biodegradable said:

Useless, cancerous garbage that cashes in with YouTube adsense off the backs of the people who made the videos they react to while giving nothing back. You're literally just watching a video of some other asshole literally doing the same thing you're doing. They are one of the worst things to ever happen to the website and I'm glad it's a... "genre" that's dying out now. 

 

Yeap, sharing the same views here. Literally nothing more than insignificant internet pollution with content that offers nothing to anyone, and a far too easy way to make a quick buck for the author since a lot of people are watching these, when actually good stuff barely receives attention sometimes.

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Personally I find some reaction videos interesting, such as people listening to certain music for the first time, or Americans reacting to British comedy that I like.

It's not high art by any means, watching such videos is very much a "smoke a fat one and veg out" kind of thing. The audiovisual equivalent of comforting junk food. After a particularly gruelling workday some of us don't have the mental energy to pop in our monocles and properly appreciate the opus of Rachmaninoff.

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2 hours ago, Doomkid said:

What I hate are the idiots who put the original content in a little corner of their stupid webcam recording of them just laughing or being idiots who add nothing to the experience, just using name recognition of current popular content to get clicks.

 

I think it depends though, similar to those very poor quality reaction videos we've mentioned, which are quality of the lowest imaginable bottom of a barrel.

 

Some of the not-so-smart-content I personally like watching are people purposefully doing something stupid in games when it actually turns out to be fun, or when they get destroyed by whatever they're playing, either because they're bad or some other reason. Yeah, not exactly insightful content by any stretch of imagination, but then it doesn't have to be either, sometimes I just want to have fun instead of watching someone going very in-depth and cleverly into something. Thinking of A Jolly Wangcore and Deadwater Gaming here, for reference.

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I'm going to be the dissenting opinion here and state that reaction videos can be fun to watch if the original video has you hyped and you want to share the hype. 

 

 

It helps that Max is a big fighting game guy, so he can offer insight as to WHY something is cool rather than just saying "OMG THAT'S AWESOME" over and over. 

 

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Some of them are not too bad, like when the person knows what they're talking about and shares interesting bits of info and trivia, like HOUNDISH and Unknown Player, like what Mr. Freeze said, instead of just needless excitement.

 

Also we're now reacting to reaction videos so there's that.

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I'm mostly with @Biodegradable on this. Reaction videos and channels are the epitome of low-effort content that somehow attracts a bafflingly big audience. At the same time, though, @Mr. Freeze raises a good point - when there's something more valuable to be offered than constant screams of praise and pseudo-orgasms, I can see them being quite interesting to watch.

Edited by MFG38

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I've never put much thought into these kinds of videos, or watched very many of them, but I do really love IGN's new Devs React series. Particularly when it comes to games I've loved and played over the years. I hope this series continues for a long time!

 

Spoiler

 

 

 

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In a time where there's so much content on YouTube, I'd rather spend my time watching something with more effort put into. That doesn't mean all reaction videos are bad or equally bad. The ones where the person reacting is related to the subject of the video (devs reacting to speedruns of games they made for example) can be interesting to watch.

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And remember that time when some channel tryed to copyright the word ''react'' or something like that? Yeah, that pretty much sums it up.

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7 hours ago, Biodegradable said:

 

Most assuredly, but they're not nearly as insurmountable as they were just a few years ago. Back in 2015-2016, they were EVERYWHERE. I am grateful that, as a trend, they're fucking dead.

Just wanted to r e a c t  to this because I don't think it's a dying trend - try being a Nightwish fan in 2020, my recommended section has pretty much constantly had VOCAL COACH REACTS TO GHOST LOVE SCORE WACKEN 2013 for the last two years and new ones still pop up like every week (and it's always that video too, lol).

 

I didn't realise how many 'vocal coaches' there were in the world until this :)

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@Eris Falling I'm mainly referring to the infectious trend of 2015-2016 when they were more notorious. I don't mean the mere practice itself with actual theming and transformative efforts. I'm referring to the lazy cancerous hacks that would just sit there and stare at there screen and barely say or do anything. You know the ones I mean.

 

@Endless I certainly remember, mate.

 

 

 

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If it's just them watching the video and laughing/making dumb commentary it shouldn't be monetized what-so-ever.

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Well, Pewdipie make millions with his scream-like-a-bitch videos of him playing Amnesia or other horror-games.
So yeah, people is stupid and like to watch people being stupid while knowing being stupid just for the stupids to watch them and grab their stupid cash with their stupids likes.


And i'm the stupid writing this...

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The genre itself isn't that bad. It would be interesting to watch someone expert in a subject react to a new technology, as tech unboxing videos do, or a group of old jazz artists react to contemporary jazz records, for example. It would be a fun and interesting analysis. Sadly, haven't found anything like that. Still, I think "first times" are overrated. But mostly the clickbaity kind of react videos are pretty bland and boring in terms of content, for my taste at least.

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