Alchemical Reactions

I’m going to open up a whole new world for some of my readers in this post. Not my younger readers, probably. But if you’re 40 or above, there’s a chance you haven’t yet indulged in one of the pure joys of youtube: the reaction video.

People will say to me, “Why do I want to watch someone watch something?” I understand. That was my feeling as well for a long time.

Think about it like this… Have you ever made a new friend, or started a new relationship. And you’re like, “Oh my god… you’ve never seen The Usual Suspects? Oh, man, you have to. It’s so good.” And then you make plans to watch it together and you sit down with your bowl of popcorn and you fire up the movie and five minutes in the other person is texting on their phone or they’re falling asleep. And you get irrationally angry about it. You’re thinking, “I’m going to punch this piece of shit in the throat.” That’s because we like watching people experience the stuff we like.

With reaction videos you get to watch people who are engaged with the content experiencing things you enjoy, often for the first time.

My reaction video awakening happened maybe 18 months ago when I was searching for a comedy clip on youtube. The first one I hit on was a couple of guys watching that specific clip. And I laughed so much more watching it than I would have if I was just watching the clip itself. I enjoy stand-up, but if I watch it by myself I don’t do much out-loud laughing, even if I think it’s funny. But watching other people watching it gets those mirror neurons firing and makes it so much more enjoyable. It’s probably especially valuable during this time of social distancing.

Here are some of my favorite reactors on youtube.

For stand-up comedy, I like the guys at Frankenstein’s Lab. There’s the guy on the right in the hat who leans back, and the guy on the left who leans forward. That’s all I really know about them. But I love watching them have their shit cracked up. Here’s their latest.

For older music I like the channel India Reacts. She’s a sweet soul who gets very moved by the music she listens to. Here’s her reacting to “You’ve Lost that Loving Feeling” by the Righteous Brothers. For some reason this has become a very popular song for people to react to on youtube. Most of the music I see people react to online are songs that have been so played out for me that it’s hard to appreciate them anymore. Hearing them through the perspective of someone who is less familiar with the song gives me a renewed appreciation for them.

And finally we have No Life Shaq. He reacts to comedy, rap, and hard rock, among other things. He’s ridiculous and charismatic and fun to watch. Usually at least once every video he’ll toss off his headphones and walk around because he’s so excited about what he’s watching. He continuously says, “That’s tough!” about everything. From what I can gather, tough = awesome, excellent, inspiring, amazing, thought-provoking, terrible, crazy, upsetting.

Below is him reacting to Chop Suey by System of A Down and a George Carlin routine.

In general, it’s a pretty joyful genre of youtube videos. I can easily lose hours to it if I’m not careful.