Reacting For The Better

            Receiving validation for what we watch, what we see and what our beliefs are is something we as people tend to look for every day, in every facet of our lives. It’s the entire ideal behind the idea of conformity, wherein we want to feel like a part of the crowd and part of the bigger picture.

            When it comes to things within the media, we find ourselves fleeing to the comment sections of things, in order to find out who exactly agrees with us on different topics. For example, YouTube comments usually tend to go one way or another: They agree wholeheartedly with the content being shown, or they immediately dismiss it as nonsense, as nothing of noteworthy importance. Although, if someone’s opinion is delved deeper into, we see people’s opinions begin to change. This is where a decent amount of Reaction Videos come in.

https://flic.kr/p/LXTkT1

            Now, reaction videos are, in and of themselves, entertainment in one way, shape or form. Sometimes they’re made to show us how someone feels seeing content coming up in society, like with a lot of gaming reactions. Others can be made into videos on theories and ideas that the creators of content might have had in mind when creating it for their audiences, an example that can be seen in a lot of MatPat videos. There are, of course, more examples of reaction videos with other, more pressing agendas, but I think it would be far more important to look into a different topic: Why are these videos so important? Why are they so popular and so prevalent on social media?

            As stated before, we love to validate our own opinions by finding others who are of the same mindset. When we find people like that, we can be more confident in ourselves when we assert our opinions, since we know others can help us support these opinions. This is probably the biggest reason behind why reaction videos are so popular and prevalent. In some ways these videos actively allow us to have a source for our opinions, and give us subsequent support when arguing our beliefs to other people. Not only that, but these reaction videos help us formulate our opinions even deeper than what we had on the surface, and supply us with more ideas on what our opinions should be. While I am by no right claiming that we should plagiarize these different sources of opinions, I do find that having reaction videos around help us win arguments with other people.

https://flic.kr/p/289H9nq

            One such reaction video that one might have watched for social media was “College Kids React to This is America- Childish Gambino.” It’s a rather interesting video to watch, as we get to see how people who have already seen the music video for This is America react to it, as well as those who hadn’t seen the video before. We get a mixture of responses from the viewers. However, one idea that tends to stay prevalent throughout the video is how African Americans are treated in America, and the horrible climate that America was, and probably still is, in. A reaction video like this could absolutely be used to help argue why America needs to change and how even people who are young and trying to thrive in society are able to see the different injustices within their own culture. There’s a widespread argument about how people my age (19) tend to be too preoccupied with our phones and technology to notice the injustices around us that are happening. However, we absolutely do see it, but, being only in College, there isn’t very much we can do about it, since our words might not be taken as seriously as someone who is older and “wiser.” By having the media to show that college students do, in fact, pay attention to the world around them with videos such as these, we have far more credibility to prove that we do know what we’re talking about and might even have ways in which we can help change our society for the better.

            Reaction videos also tie in with another idea that we talked about in our social media class. The idea of spreadability, of how viral videos and different sources of media spread across the internet, are almost exactly what reaction videos are about. When someone sees something controversial on TV or on YouTube, they immediately look towards some other source to see their take on it. While it might be used to validate their own opinion, it could also be used to try and understand more about a specific topic, since it might be confusing at first. Most reaction videos I have seen tend to dive a bit deeper into topics in order to understand just what might have been meant with such statements or such viral videos. Whether it’s to entertain us with how people react to something new, deeper looks on important matters, or a way to see things from another viewpoint, I find that these reaction videos are crucial on YouTube, and will continue to be crucial for quite a number of years.