It's a way of stealing someone else's content and for some reason YouTube allows it. I close that slop immediately.
this post was submitted on 31 Dec 2025
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I get so irritated seeing that bottom panel of uselessness. And it’s always so exaggerated… first couple of times I thought it might be some commentary or a conversation. Now I wish there was a thumbs up, thumbs down, and punch in the face. I’d chose the later.
There’s a clause in most countries’ copyright laws that allow you to use material for the purposes of “commentary”.
Same. I do the ‘show less of this shit’ also.
Ok. I'll throw myself on my sword and give a different take than what most people are.
I wasnt into reaction videos aka analysis vidoes at all until Kpop Demon Hunters came out. I really like this movie. I've even watched it several times, including once at the theater, which is very unusual for me.
I have a fairly isolated life. Not many friends and the few I do have I only see occasionally. So I don't have anyone I can gush about this movie to let alone rewatch it with or introduce it to.
Putting on a reaction video while walking the dogs lets me listen to someone else enjoying discovering the movie for the first time. Obviously I can't participate, but I've still shared their joy.
An alternate one is singers analyzing music videos. I watched someone going nut over a Beatbox video of Beatpella House, then saw their reaction video of VoicePlay covering Nothing Else Matters. Mindblowing rendition! I would never have found this without scrolling through their other videos. Sometimes being open to new things pays off.
Again- I’m not talking about analysis videos.
I’m talking about videos where a useless pile of flesh takes up half the screen, nodding along, or laughing while saying nothing at all.
I’m talking about videos where a useless pile of flesh takes up half the screen, nodding along, or laughing while saying nothing at all.
Such videos almost always consist of a watchful observer offering their opinion of the behavior going on in the video clip. Their opinions are what creates their fans.
Again…. I’m talking about idiots that nod along with/laugh at videos of people doing stupid shit.
NOT commentaries or analysis videos.
I think it’s one of the most lazy ways to make a video, and leeching off more popular content.
They are not transforming the content enough to be free use.
Reaction videos just feel like a cheap way to profit on other people's content without getting flagged.
That's literally all Japanese shows. Sometimes they several reaction faces simultaneously.
oh I have seen that!! and wondered the same. For anyone confused, it's (what I assume to be) somebody else's recording, with a head superimposed on it that chuckles every 10s or so
Unpopular thing to say but... I just don't understand watching other people gaming.
Note that I did not say "people who watch twitch are idiots".
Just that I personally don't get it, never will. I'm fine with that too, people do loads of things that I don't find at all appealing.
I've watched let's plays of strategy games that I want to be better at, in order to see people who don't fucking suck like I do. But after I get a better idea on how to suck less, I stop.
That's fair. I don't watch streamers as a rule, but let's plays can be enjoyable. I'll watch them if the commentators are funny, or if it's a game I'm interested in knowing about but not interested enough to play through myself, or if it's on a platform I don't have, The Metal Gear Solid series for example.
i watch it for the commentary. Its also kind of like pseudoshared experience. There are also bunch of games that are not necessarily bad but which i dont want to buy, so watching someone else play it is nice way to experience the game and also see if it would be worth getting afterall.
I'm not into sports neither and when my father explained why he watches sports, I suggested you might just as well watch people playing video games.
I thought that was ridiculous at the time but it actually became a thing
For the same reason people watch professional sports.
Fair enough. I don't watch ~~gambling ads~~ professional sports either.
The streamer might do some funny (or insightful) comments about the game while playing, or do a playthrough with some weird conditions (e.g. he can't do certain actions like healing, ...) that you wouldn't in your right mind apply to yourself
The streamers I watch are usually incredibly talented and can pull off things I wouldn't even imagine. They also explain the game at a very high level and can show me the boundaries that I didn't even know existed. They also experiment with different setups and beat the game in hard mode without breaking a sweat.
Not everyone can pull it off while being entertaining and pleasant, but I think those are the ones worth watching the most.
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Some streamers play indie games and some are terribly boring to me. It helps me sleep.
Sometimes I find it fun to watch a game I will never play, but I also get to chat with the streamer so theres that too.
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Yeah I don't like them either.
You know that person reacting already watched it at least twice before putting on a show of exaggerated expressions.
It just seems dumb to me.
It’s ridiculous. I can’t even figure out a stupid reason to do it.
I guess it's either cheap to make background noise (instead of taking the effort to create an actual original video) or it's kind of like mukbangs, where some people would watch them while eating themselves so as to feel less lonely.
I don't understand those long ass unboxing videos either. If you wanna review a product and show us what all came with it. Have that shit all laid out on a table before you start the video.
It's weird to make a 10 min video of slowly cutting tape and meticulously removing things from a shipping container.
Weird.
That's the "better" reaction channels. There are channels that record singer generic reactions (no commentary) and put them over hundreds of videos despite the reactions not making sense at all
Its affirmation therapy for insecure people. "Somebody likes the thing I like!"
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I can understand that many people find reaction videos useless and low-effort content. Personally, I enjoy rewatching a lot of shows and it adds to my enjoyment doing so with somebody else. I have nobody in my life who is interested in that, so reaction videos work as a parasocial substitute. I can still see people I like (as little as I really know them) sharing the experience and sometimes having interestingly different reactions and observations.
BTW: For those who think reaction videos are a sensible way to not pay for the original content, may I introduce you to BitTorrent?
Yeah this. I never really cared for them, and tbh a lot of those reaction videos are very over the top or fake. But I kinda latched onto the more grounded ones this year. It allows me to rewatch some of my favorite content "with others". Obviously it's not as good as doing so with friends, but getting friends to watch all this content is kinda hard. If they care, they've probably already seen it or it's just very hard to plan something like this. And if they don't care then watching together won't be fun anyway.
Last year has been quite stressful and sometimes I just need some "mental fastfood". Reaction content is that. There's no stress, I know exactly what will happen when. There's just the joy of seeing someone else watch or play something awesome for the first time. It kinda makes it feel like I'm seeing it for the first time with them. And some of these people actually see or know things that I wasn't aware of when watching. Or they come up with interesting theories about what's gonna happen next.
Because if you show the original video, thats copyright infringement, and pirating of content.
Show the "reaction", and it falls within fair use. Even if the reactor doesn't DO anything.
This shit should be against ToS.
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I agree it is generally pretty stupid and difficult to watch, however there are a few situations where it makes some sort of sense.
- It is sometimes used as a way to get around certain copyright issues (probably not legally, but it sometimes confounds the horribly stupid copyright bots that major platforms use with lazy impunity)
- Sometimes the person "reacting" is themselves entertaining to watch. These reaction videos are generally for pre-existing fans of that person, not for fans of the video being watched.
- Sometimes the person reacting is adding genuine value, for example they might be a legitimate expert (or at least a self-believed one) on the topic the video is discussing. This is in some sense sort of a video review, or a fact-check.
- It is pure algorithm-bait, not really intended for any actual human to deliberately enjoy, but it tricks the algorithm into showing it to people who are too low-effort to look up the real video and just watch it because it's in their "feed".
Usually it's some combination of the above.
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I’d say let’s start reaction to reaction videos, but Bo Burnham already covered that ground
I'll do it but it's just me sitting stony-faced before going "load of wank" and turning it off halfway through.
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Laughing is a social thing that people don't normally do by themselves (unless it's really funny), so I''m guessing that having a human face on screen to "enjoy the content with" ups the level of engagement. Similar to laugh tracks in shitty sitcoms.
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As a counterpoint, I like watching The Charismatic Voice - a trained opera singer reacting to pop and rock music vocalists, often the first time hearing them, and offering a great analysis of their vocal techniques. That's a reaction video done right.
As an example, watching her react to John Farnham's performance of 'Help' reduces me to tears.
The last time someone made a similar complaint about reaction videos, I responded with a comment similar to yours regarding El Estepario Siberiano reacting to a Danny Carey performance and someone else responded to me explaining that an analysis video is much different than a reaction video and I tend to agree. I appreciate analysis videos where the person provides insight and context to what they're showing me that I might not understand on my own.
Yeah, I guess analysis videos are a different animal, and not really what the OP is talking about. I too avoid those.
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