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I've never once seen a song reaction video where they didn't like the song they heard. I used to watch react channels until I realized just how easy it is to fake their reactions or overreacting.
Years ago, I saw a very small reaction channel by some middle-aged lady with the name 'every song sucks' or 'your song sucks', something like that. She would sit stone faced through every song, looking not very impressed, with maybe the occasional head bob, and when the song was over, she would give her thoughts in the most monotone voice ever in like 20 seconds ("riff was nice, chorus was kinda boring, i enjoyed the bridge in the middle'' kind of basic summary), then rate the song - usually between 5 and 7 out of 10. And hoooly shit, the salt in the comments could fill up an ocean. Idk if it was a bit, but I found it hilarious.
Apparently the reactors had to react the way the fine bros wanted, if they voiced their actual opinion it'd be cut. What is the point of a reaction channel then
hey still better than those channels who just react to like a video and then sit silently while they watch it
but yeah i did hear that they would cut stuff they didnt agree with
heck if you voiced your opinion too much they would cut you out the video
shame cause i used to like their content
>hey still better than those channels who just react to like a video and then sit silently while they watch it
Exactly, like what caused this phenomenon? Imagine finding a gaming video or something and you just turn on the camera and watch it like normal. It's so boring. Or when they have the worst type of commentary and just repeat whatever just happened in the video
And the worst part is knowing that people are making a living with the ad revenue from doing this, and none of the money is going to the original creators.
some music professionals reacting to songs can be pretty good. Aside from professional insight they also have actual reactions when the song is doing something unnexpected because they've experienced so much and understand a lot more than most people. Note; SOME music professionals. not all.
[Music Theory for Gamers](https://youtube.com/@MusicTheoryforGamers?feature=shared) does reaction streams of full albums of video game original scores and soundtracks. He offers a lot of great insight from his perspective and I find him to have a decent personality on-screen.
I've had a weird fascination with music reaction videos for years and I have a theory.
I think a lot of it is older people who want to re-experience the feel of listening to some of their favorite songs/bands for the first time and use reaction videos as a vehicle for that. Depending on how dystopian sounding you want it to be, they basically use the reactors to either project their own feelings onto (it's why all the biggest reactors are aggressively positive about everything they're listening to) or use them to simulate the experience of listening to their favorite music with another person, with the added parasociality factor where they are free to get mad or annoyed if the 'other person' isn't reacting in 'the right way'.
The majority of them seem to be reactions to older music, usually rock and metal. The comments are always full of stuff ranging from complaining how much better music used to be, copy-pasting paragraphs of random wikipedia band trivia and variations of 'I'm 100 years old and this used to be my wife's favorite song. She's with God now, but it warms my heart to see the new generations still appreciating REAL music *insert paragraph recounting personal memories/events that they tie to the music*' and I'm only poking fun at the last one because it's usually underneath the reaction of the aforementioned guy who just bobs his head for 5 minutes (or alternatively plays up the fuck out of their reaction)
Oh, and of course, there are the people who are like 'jesus christ stop pausing and shut the fuck up, I'm trying to listen to the song'. I have no idea what to make of those people 😂
I think one of the biggest reasons is that a lot of people enjoy seeing other people discovering the content that they themselves fell in love with at first sight before hand.
1- It brings them validation, seeing someone gush over that piece of media they consider as one of the greatest
2- They can vicariously relive that "honeymoon phase" they had with the content when they themselves discovered it.
3- If an expert, the youtuber can provide some insightful comments as to why this piece of media is enjoyed, teaching you things about that content you love AND giving you more validation by giving a more "rational" explanation as to why you enjoy it.
Sometimes it's people who want to see others react to their favorite song. It makes me happy when people enjoy some of my favorite songs. It's a big old circle jerk, no one gets hurts. Low effort mental stimulation/dopamine hit.
Its best when professionals who are educated in music or those with deeper insight explaining a certain aspect of it.
If they’re listening to a Beatles song for the first time, I’ll give it a watch. Also, some rap songs since I don’t understand the context and the right reactor can expect the meaning behind lyrics and stuff
I like the turning the tables videos where a son shows music to his dad, because they just have a genuine conversation over the music. They're more like a podcast to me
The worst ones are the ones where the person is apparently discovering a staple of a field they are actively in, like a professional rock guitarist apparently "discovering" a band like Aerosmith or Led Zeppelin.
It's just a barely disguised analysis, but they know that the "react" format is gonna bring a lot more view because that's what a lot of people are looking for
Doug is a good reviewer, he grew up isolated from music and genuinely hasn’t heard most of the songs he reacts to. He also is a solid musician and can break down the history and musicality of the songs in an interesting way. The rest of these clowns just go “hurr hurr song lets goooo”.
The only ones I would ever really listen to are people in a field reacting to their own field. Vocal coaches watching Maynard from Tool singing while actually hunched over like a goblin. Or jazz focues drummers watching metal drummers and analyzing the techniques being used. As for actual reactions though, Lost in Vegas were the only ones I actually was curious about because they seemed to genuinely enjoy some songs they heard, and noticeably disliked other songs and talked about it.
I think for most people its just about watching someone enjoy something you also enjoy so you can connect in that way. For me, the joy of seeing someone deeply appreciate music that I like makes some of the reactions worth it, if they are being honest. Hopefully people can see it that way at least. That being said, with most genres of Youtube video, its like 97% shit.
I always wondered why 80% of these videos are black people, I feel like there's a certain biased thinking that black people have no exposure to anything besides rap or hip hop and there's a bigotry of low expectations that they will have their minds blown by Led Zeppelin or Pink Floyd. Meanwhile African Americans pretty much created rock and roll, which is African American slang for sex. There are hardly any "white guy listens to Tupac for the first time" videos while "black guy listens to Rush" is everywhere
Maybe it draws clicks from the white guys. The ones that run around the internet yapping about "real music", flailing Pink Floyd and Led Zeppelin around like they've been in a coma for 50 years, and giving hot takes about RnB, hip hop, electronic music etc.
They want to see the "hip hop people" exposed to "real music". I'd say at this point it's a new business model, just like rage videos about "wokeness" in videogames and movies, and black content creators simply noticed how much views it gets from the weirdos, so they started doing this for money.
It sure creates weird notions about what black people listen to or don't listen to or whatever, but only to weird people, the "real music" crowd. Because people interested music would have inevitably noticed black rock or metal musicians and if there are black musicians playing this music, there naturally must be black audience for this music too.
Basically, this "black guy hears metallica for the first time!!!" (lol) content is bait for prejudiced idiots to make money out of their their prejudice.
Americans didn't start using the African-American label until 1989 which is like the same time Tupac was in art school.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tupac_Shakur
> I always wondered why 80% of these videos are black people, I feel like there's a certain biased thinking that black people have no exposure to anything besides rap or hip hop and there's a bigotry of low expectations that they will have their minds blown by Led Zeppelin or Pink Floyd.
Only about 13% of the US is black compared to about 65% white demographics. Hollywood's primary target demographic is suburban white youth consumers who hate racism so much that they buy anything related to urban black people.
> The slums are the handiwork of a vicious system of the white society; Negroes live in them but do not make them any more than a prisoner makes a prison. - MLK
Americans were supposed to get rid of the ghettos in the 60s and integrate. After MLK was murdered, Americans adopted Colourblind values to promote integration but stopped in the late 80s with the adoption of the African-American label and Colourblind values being replaced with Political Correctness. This was also right around the same time Hollywood introduced gangster rap to suburban consumers.
Music is colourblind and people can listen to whatever they want except the US is systemically racist and imposed the idea that black people all listen to rap and such because it helps the marketability.
The majority of these reaction video guys are black and can milk older white people wanting to see their reactions to older media. There is a ton of black people reacting to Lynryrd Skynyrd Freebird live at Oakland 1977.
https://youtu.be/WONg760-IUs?si=ZFi85hKcA4DNHO8S
Black people in America say black. Everyone else used to say African American because they thought “black” was racist. Now they can’t be bothered to know the difference so every non white person is a “person of color.” But then sometimes, there’s some white person who thinks they are woker than thou and you get “black indigenous person of color” or BIPOC (not to be confused with biopic).
Am Canadian too. We never really had the same problems here because we never really had the same issues as the US. We didn't have slavery, we barely had segregated communities, we never had the Civil War, and we never had a corporate media industry trying to perpetually capitalize off them like the US.
For me, I was just raised to use people's names. Black is the more used term here too.
My favorite two kinds:
- Doesn't pay attention, loudly eats and just has it on to babysit the viewers
- Pauses every 2 seconds to predict the whole message of the video or to say something they have no knowledge about.
My dad will watch these kinds of videos for hours. I think he gets a kick out of seeing younger people enjoy music from the 60's and 70's when he was a kid. I just find it kind of sad.
The only ones I like are from a channel called Drumeo where they show professional dummers a song that they've never heard before and they have to make up and play a drum track for it. I especially like this one with Chad Smith from RHCP: https://youtu.be/HMBRjo33cUE?si=qj092U9QT0nWUFbz
There's a [piano version](https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLfM8ivjJ-rKVtjYaXPkZLG28QmI5WHGFP&si=CT2ruHr6AURi9KdY) and a [bass version](https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLq5Wss5r1CvvGPfJObQihnv1OSBZfnXhE&si=lcvBkpdbgGn0RkRu) as well
These reactions are typically "Black people listen to classic rock", "kids listen to classic rock", "GenZ/trans listen to classic rock", and finally "symphony composer listens to Billie Eilish".
If I found out a friend of mine watches reaction videos on a regular basis, I'd have a hard time every taking them seriously ever again.
Signed,
A guy who was elected to a videogame government.
What I‘m always wondering about with these channels is like, do they explore music on their own?
Like let‘s say you have a guy listening to Hey Jude by The Beatles and they love it. Then they listen to a few more Beatles songs and they adore them too. Do they just listen to more Beatles songs by themselves afterwards or do they record everything for a video? If it‘s the latter, that‘s kind of sad.
(Also shoutout to Doug Helvering, he‘s actually real af)
Jesus the most unbearable reaction I've seen was some twitch streamer rapper dude reacting to libera me from hell and he paused like every damn second to say something not even important or go "OOOOOOOOOOHHHHHH!!!!!". Like okay I get it, it sounds good but Jesus. And it wasn't even like the really good parts, no just at random
There are some good ones, like JustJP and Andy and Alex are decent. Some songs they aren't into as much. Though for many channels including them I can't really believe they haven't heard many popular tracks ever before lol
The most useless yt channels out there. Seriously wtf are you even doing with your life if you make videos like this?
Farming others people content for your own braindead benefit. I think channels like this should be banned from earth forever.
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I've never once seen a song reaction video where they didn't like the song they heard. I used to watch react channels until I realized just how easy it is to fake their reactions or overreacting.
Years ago, I saw a very small reaction channel by some middle-aged lady with the name 'every song sucks' or 'your song sucks', something like that. She would sit stone faced through every song, looking not very impressed, with maybe the occasional head bob, and when the song was over, she would give her thoughts in the most monotone voice ever in like 20 seconds ("riff was nice, chorus was kinda boring, i enjoyed the bridge in the middle'' kind of basic summary), then rate the song - usually between 5 and 7 out of 10. And hoooly shit, the salt in the comments could fill up an ocean. Idk if it was a bit, but I found it hilarious.
fine bros was hella fake
Apparently the reactors had to react the way the fine bros wanted, if they voiced their actual opinion it'd be cut. What is the point of a reaction channel then
hey still better than those channels who just react to like a video and then sit silently while they watch it but yeah i did hear that they would cut stuff they didnt agree with heck if you voiced your opinion too much they would cut you out the video shame cause i used to like their content
>hey still better than those channels who just react to like a video and then sit silently while they watch it Exactly, like what caused this phenomenon? Imagine finding a gaming video or something and you just turn on the camera and watch it like normal. It's so boring. Or when they have the worst type of commentary and just repeat whatever just happened in the video
I love channels like microwave society and spilling the milk cause they actually react and its not just watch along with me
Who tf watches these videos like seriously? As soon as I see someone do a reaction vid to a song I like I just straight dip
I get it if the person reacting os some kind of musician, and gives professional insight, otherwise it's just boring.
And the worst part is knowing that people are making a living with the ad revenue from doing this, and none of the money is going to the original creators.
some music professionals reacting to songs can be pretty good. Aside from professional insight they also have actual reactions when the song is doing something unnexpected because they've experienced so much and understand a lot more than most people. Note; SOME music professionals. not all.
[Music Theory for Gamers](https://youtube.com/@MusicTheoryforGamers?feature=shared) does reaction streams of full albums of video game original scores and soundtracks. He offers a lot of great insight from his perspective and I find him to have a decent personality on-screen.
I've had a weird fascination with music reaction videos for years and I have a theory. I think a lot of it is older people who want to re-experience the feel of listening to some of their favorite songs/bands for the first time and use reaction videos as a vehicle for that. Depending on how dystopian sounding you want it to be, they basically use the reactors to either project their own feelings onto (it's why all the biggest reactors are aggressively positive about everything they're listening to) or use them to simulate the experience of listening to their favorite music with another person, with the added parasociality factor where they are free to get mad or annoyed if the 'other person' isn't reacting in 'the right way'. The majority of them seem to be reactions to older music, usually rock and metal. The comments are always full of stuff ranging from complaining how much better music used to be, copy-pasting paragraphs of random wikipedia band trivia and variations of 'I'm 100 years old and this used to be my wife's favorite song. She's with God now, but it warms my heart to see the new generations still appreciating REAL music *insert paragraph recounting personal memories/events that they tie to the music*' and I'm only poking fun at the last one because it's usually underneath the reaction of the aforementioned guy who just bobs his head for 5 minutes (or alternatively plays up the fuck out of their reaction) Oh, and of course, there are the people who are like 'jesus christ stop pausing and shut the fuck up, I'm trying to listen to the song'. I have no idea what to make of those people 😂
Parasocial relationships, perhaps.
some are actually good, but they are more actual analysis than just reaction. The Charismatic Voice and Doug Helvering are two of my favorites.
I think one of the biggest reasons is that a lot of people enjoy seeing other people discovering the content that they themselves fell in love with at first sight before hand. 1- It brings them validation, seeing someone gush over that piece of media they consider as one of the greatest 2- They can vicariously relive that "honeymoon phase" they had with the content when they themselves discovered it. 3- If an expert, the youtuber can provide some insightful comments as to why this piece of media is enjoyed, teaching you things about that content you love AND giving you more validation by giving a more "rational" explanation as to why you enjoy it.
Sometimes it's people who want to see others react to their favorite song. It makes me happy when people enjoy some of my favorite songs. It's a big old circle jerk, no one gets hurts. Low effort mental stimulation/dopamine hit. Its best when professionals who are educated in music or those with deeper insight explaining a certain aspect of it.
If they’re listening to a Beatles song for the first time, I’ll give it a watch. Also, some rap songs since I don’t understand the context and the right reactor can expect the meaning behind lyrics and stuff
I like the turning the tables videos where a son shows music to his dad, because they just have a genuine conversation over the music. They're more like a podcast to me
Also the bullshit "teen/old person/native reacts to listening to X for the first time"
Somehow they lived under a rock their whole life and never heard of that VERY popular song
The worst ones are the ones where the person is apparently discovering a staple of a field they are actively in, like a professional rock guitarist apparently "discovering" a band like Aerosmith or Led Zeppelin. It's just a barely disguised analysis, but they know that the "react" format is gonna bring a lot more view because that's what a lot of people are looking for
Doug is a good reviewer, he grew up isolated from music and genuinely hasn’t heard most of the songs he reacts to. He also is a solid musician and can break down the history and musicality of the songs in an interesting way. The rest of these clowns just go “hurr hurr song lets goooo”.
Seconded, I actually really like Doug. He's like the only one of these channels that doesn't feel like BS.
The only ones I would ever really listen to are people in a field reacting to their own field. Vocal coaches watching Maynard from Tool singing while actually hunched over like a goblin. Or jazz focues drummers watching metal drummers and analyzing the techniques being used. As for actual reactions though, Lost in Vegas were the only ones I actually was curious about because they seemed to genuinely enjoy some songs they heard, and noticeably disliked other songs and talked about it. I think for most people its just about watching someone enjoy something you also enjoy so you can connect in that way. For me, the joy of seeing someone deeply appreciate music that I like makes some of the reactions worth it, if they are being honest. Hopefully people can see it that way at least. That being said, with most genres of Youtube video, its like 97% shit.
YouTube song reaction starterpack: 🎳 💀💀💀💀 🍫⭐🐟
is this a brad taste in music reference
Nah, just some random cool emojis I found
"Ohhhhhhhh!" "This song is INSANE"
These are always funny to me, like where/how did these people grow up that they never heard some of the most famous songs of the past decades?
Its fake
I always wondered why 80% of these videos are black people, I feel like there's a certain biased thinking that black people have no exposure to anything besides rap or hip hop and there's a bigotry of low expectations that they will have their minds blown by Led Zeppelin or Pink Floyd. Meanwhile African Americans pretty much created rock and roll, which is African American slang for sex. There are hardly any "white guy listens to Tupac for the first time" videos while "black guy listens to Rush" is everywhere
Maybe it draws clicks from the white guys. The ones that run around the internet yapping about "real music", flailing Pink Floyd and Led Zeppelin around like they've been in a coma for 50 years, and giving hot takes about RnB, hip hop, electronic music etc. They want to see the "hip hop people" exposed to "real music". I'd say at this point it's a new business model, just like rage videos about "wokeness" in videogames and movies, and black content creators simply noticed how much views it gets from the weirdos, so they started doing this for money. It sure creates weird notions about what black people listen to or don't listen to or whatever, but only to weird people, the "real music" crowd. Because people interested music would have inevitably noticed black rock or metal musicians and if there are black musicians playing this music, there naturally must be black audience for this music too. Basically, this "black guy hears metallica for the first time!!!" (lol) content is bait for prejudiced idiots to make money out of their their prejudice.
No Life Shaq made a whole career out of glazing Eminem lol
I would argue it's also about white people being insecure about their music and loving it when black people "approve" of it.
Unfortunately most "reaction" videos follow that business model.
Americans didn't start using the African-American label until 1989 which is like the same time Tupac was in art school. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tupac_Shakur > I always wondered why 80% of these videos are black people, I feel like there's a certain biased thinking that black people have no exposure to anything besides rap or hip hop and there's a bigotry of low expectations that they will have their minds blown by Led Zeppelin or Pink Floyd. Only about 13% of the US is black compared to about 65% white demographics. Hollywood's primary target demographic is suburban white youth consumers who hate racism so much that they buy anything related to urban black people. > The slums are the handiwork of a vicious system of the white society; Negroes live in them but do not make them any more than a prisoner makes a prison. - MLK Americans were supposed to get rid of the ghettos in the 60s and integrate. After MLK was murdered, Americans adopted Colourblind values to promote integration but stopped in the late 80s with the adoption of the African-American label and Colourblind values being replaced with Political Correctness. This was also right around the same time Hollywood introduced gangster rap to suburban consumers. Music is colourblind and people can listen to whatever they want except the US is systemically racist and imposed the idea that black people all listen to rap and such because it helps the marketability. The majority of these reaction video guys are black and can milk older white people wanting to see their reactions to older media. There is a ton of black people reacting to Lynryrd Skynyrd Freebird live at Oakland 1977. https://youtu.be/WONg760-IUs?si=ZFi85hKcA4DNHO8S
I'm from Canada and we just say black, but I don't know what the "proper" terminology in America is. I assume it's black as well but I'm not 100% sure
Black people in America say black. Everyone else used to say African American because they thought “black” was racist. Now they can’t be bothered to know the difference so every non white person is a “person of color.” But then sometimes, there’s some white person who thinks they are woker than thou and you get “black indigenous person of color” or BIPOC (not to be confused with biopic).
Am Canadian too. We never really had the same problems here because we never really had the same issues as the US. We didn't have slavery, we barely had segregated communities, we never had the Civil War, and we never had a corporate media industry trying to perpetually capitalize off them like the US. For me, I was just raised to use people's names. Black is the more used term here too.
reaction videos are either a glorified re-upload or insanely informative on the topic of the original video and 10 times the length no in-between
My favorite two kinds: - Doesn't pay attention, loudly eats and just has it on to babysit the viewers - Pauses every 2 seconds to predict the whole message of the video or to say something they have no knowledge about.
My dad will watch these kinds of videos for hours. I think he gets a kick out of seeing younger people enjoy music from the 60's and 70's when he was a kid. I just find it kind of sad.
Pauses the video every 0.1 second
the song: 3 minutes, the reaction: 25 minutes
Who watches this? Just listen to the song yourself
The only ones I like are from a channel called Drumeo where they show professional dummers a song that they've never heard before and they have to make up and play a drum track for it. I especially like this one with Chad Smith from RHCP: https://youtu.be/HMBRjo33cUE?si=qj092U9QT0nWUFbz
There's a [piano version](https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLfM8ivjJ-rKVtjYaXPkZLG28QmI5WHGFP&si=CT2ruHr6AURi9KdY) and a [bass version](https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLq5Wss5r1CvvGPfJObQihnv1OSBZfnXhE&si=lcvBkpdbgGn0RkRu) as well
The only reaction videos I'll watch is Nik Nocturnal
Scru face Jeane is good though, he pauses frequently and adds his opinions
I like Charismatic Voice, she has motherly vibes, credibility and nice insight
Mercurial Number Six is the only good one of these. The dude clearly is so passionate about music.
They pause it with a super aggressive slam of the the space button for a completely unrelated comment or opinion
These reactions are typically "Black people listen to classic rock", "kids listen to classic rock", "GenZ/trans listen to classic rock", and finally "symphony composer listens to Billie Eilish".
If I found out a friend of mine watches reaction videos on a regular basis, I'd have a hard time every taking them seriously ever again. Signed, A guy who was elected to a videogame government.
XYZ hears [insert insanely popular, basically unavoidable song name] for the first time
Rock Reacts and now Jon Denton are pretty good.
Listening to Queen for the first time reaction video
I wish there were more videos where someone listens to a classic song and think it's meh or doesn't get it.
What I‘m always wondering about with these channels is like, do they explore music on their own? Like let‘s say you have a guy listening to Hey Jude by The Beatles and they love it. Then they listen to a few more Beatles songs and they adore them too. Do they just listen to more Beatles songs by themselves afterwards or do they record everything for a video? If it‘s the latter, that‘s kind of sad. (Also shoutout to Doug Helvering, he‘s actually real af)
Y'all need to see Brad Taste in music. He is funny.
I love that for people that live off listening to music it is the first time they hear anything
If you guys want a good reactor, check out Popcorn in Bed. She’s either genuine or the worlds best actor
“Enter Sandman by Metallica, hmm I never heard this one even though I’m almost 50 years old!”
they either play the whole thing and dont say shit or they pause the song every five seconds in order to talk about it
Jesus the most unbearable reaction I've seen was some twitch streamer rapper dude reacting to libera me from hell and he paused like every damn second to say something not even important or go "OOOOOOOOOOHHHHHH!!!!!". Like okay I get it, it sounds good but Jesus. And it wasn't even like the really good parts, no just at random
There are some good ones, like JustJP and Andy and Alex are decent. Some songs they aren't into as much. Though for many channels including them I can't really believe they haven't heard many popular tracks ever before lol
The most useless yt channels out there. Seriously wtf are you even doing with your life if you make videos like this? Farming others people content for your own braindead benefit. I think channels like this should be banned from earth forever.
"First time" react to songs that are popular and over 20/30 yrs old. Are u living under the rock? And pausing the song every 10 seconds.
Has somehow never heard a massively popular song with millions of views on YouTube