A reaction video, or a react video, is a video in which one or more persons react to something. Videos showing the
emotional
Emotions are physical and mental states brought on by neurophysiology, neurophysiological changes, variously associated with thoughts, feelings, behavior, behavioral responses, and a degree of pleasure or suffering, displeasure. There is ...
reactions, criticism or commentary of people viewing movies, television series episodes, film trailers, music videos, news, or other media are numerous and popular on online
video hosting service
An online video platform (OVP) enables users to upload, convert, store, and play back video content on the Internet, often via a private server structured, large-scale system that may generate revenue. Users will generally upload video content vi ...
s such as
YouTube
YouTube is an American social media and online video sharing platform owned by Google. YouTube was founded on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim who were three former employees of PayPal. Headquartered in ...
and
live-streaming services such as
Twitch. The depicted persons may not even be aware that they are being recorded. In many cases, the video to which people are reacting is shown within the reaction video, letting viewers see what is being reacted to.
The question of if, and when, reaction videos constitute a
fair use
Fair use is a Legal doctrine, doctrine in United States law that permits limited use of copyrighted material without having to first acquire permission from the copyright holder. Fair use is one of the limitations to copyright intended to bal ...
of
intellectual property
Intellectual property (IP) is a category of property that includes intangible creations of the human intellect. There are many types of intellectual property, and some countries recognize more than others. The best-known types are patents, co ...
, rather than an appropriation of the reacted-to content, and a
copyright infringement
Copyright infringement (at times referred to as piracy) is the use of Copyright#Scope, works protected by copyright without permission for a usage where such permission is required, thereby infringing certain exclusive rights granted to the c ...
, has generated controversy and is a subject of discussion and debate.
History
On television, reaction clips have long been a feature of
Japanese variety shows, showing
tarento
Television personalities in Japan, known as in Japanese, are celebrities who regularly appear in mass media in Japan, especially as panelists on variety shows. During the Golden Age of Hollywood, bankable stars in the United States were descri ...
and other celebrities reacting to video clips. An evolution of earlier 1970s Japanese TV quiz shows that featured audience participants responding to questions,
Fuji Television
JOCX-DTV (channel 8), branded as or , is a Japanese television station that serves the Kantō region as the flagship (broadcasting), flagship station of the Fuji News Network (FNN) and the Fuji Network System (FNS). The station is owned-and- ...
's ''
Naruhodo! The World'' in 1981 introduced a format where a panel of celebrities and comedians watched brief videos and answered questions on the video. This eventually evolved into the "waipu" format, where a "waipu box" superimposed on the corner of the screen shows a celebrity or tarento reacting to a video clip. This reaction format is still widely used in Japanese variety shows, where it is the equivalent of a
laugh track
A laugh track (or laughter track) is an audio recording consisting of laughter (and other audience reactions) usually used as a separate soundtrack for comedy productions. The laugh track may contain live audience reactions or artificial laught ...
on American television shows.
One of the first online
viral reaction videos showed a child reacting to the "
Scary Maze Game" prank on YouTube in 2006.
Beginning in 2007, reaction videos began to proliferate on the Internet. Among their first topics were reactions to the shock video ''
2 Girls 1 Cup''.
By 2011, videos of people recording themselves reacting to film trailers had become a staple of services such as YouTube.
The numerous reaction videos for particularly popular or shocking television events, such as the 2013 ''
Game of Thrones
''Game of Thrones'' is an American Fantasy television, fantasy Drama (film and television), drama television series created by David Benioff and for HBO. It is an adaptation of ''A Song of Ice and Fire'', a series of high fantasy novels by ...
'' episode "
The Rains of Castamere", have themselves become the subject of commentary.
In 2013, the British TV channel
Channel 4
Channel 4 is a British free-to-air public broadcast television channel owned and operated by Channel Four Television Corporation. It is state-owned enterprise, publicly owned but, unlike the BBC, it receives no public funding and is funded en ...
converted the reaction video format into a TV show, ''
Gogglebox.'' In this reality show, families or groups of friends watch and discuss popular television broadcasts of the previous week in their own homes. The format was successful and spawned licensed adaptations in other television markets.
Music reaction videos
Music reaction videos involve people filming themselves and their reactions to a song, or a music video for a song, as they listen to it for the first time.
Some videos offer a contrast with the listener being outside of the traditional audience for the music.
''
The New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''NYT'') is an American daily newspaper based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces, investigative reports, and reviews. As one of ...
'' noted there is a racial dynamic to many reaction videos which involve younger, Black listeners responding positively to music by older, white musicians.
Some YouTube channels doing music reaction videos have become very successful, with major music labels reaching out to channels to promote their artists.
When Tim and Fred Williams's reaction video to
Phil Collins
Philip David Charles Collins (born 30 January 1951) is an English musician, songwriter, record producer and actor. He was the drummer and later became the lead singer of the rock band Genesis (band), Genesis and had a successful solo career, ac ...
' "
In the Air Tonight
"In the Air Tonight" is the debut solo single by English drummer and singer-songwriter Phil Collins. It was released as the lead single from Collins's debut solo album, ''Face Value (album), Face Value'', in January 1981. It was selected as the s ...
" went viral, it pushed the song to #2 on the
iTunes
iTunes is a media player, media library, and mobile device management (MDM) utility developed by Apple. It is used to purchase, play, download and organize digital multimedia on personal computers running the macOS and Windows operating s ...
chart.
Reception
Commenting on the phenomenon, Sam Anderson described it as encapsulating the "fundamental experience of the Internet" in that it involved watching screens on which people watched screens, in a potentially infinite regression.
The first reaction videos for the gross-out ''
2 Girls 1 Cup'' allowed people, according to Anderson, to "experience its dangerous thrill without having to encounter it directly—like
Perseus
In Greek mythology, Perseus (, ; Greek language, Greek: Περσεύς, Romanization of Greek, translit. Perseús) is the legendary founder of the Perseid dynasty. He was, alongside Cadmus and Bellerophon, the greatest Greek hero and slayer of ...
looking at
Medusa
In Greek mythology, Medusa (; ), also called Gorgo () or the Gorgon, was one of the three Gorgons. Medusa is generally described as a woman with living snakes in place of hair; her appearance was so hideous that anyone who looked upon her wa ...
in the reflection of his shield". But much like the later videos featuring reactions to items of popular culture, Anderson wrote, such videos provide the appeal of experiencing, "at a time of increasing cultural difference, the comforting universality of human nature" in showing people of all backgrounds reacting similarly to a shared cultural experience.
Witney Seibold derided reaction videos as "graceless" and "narcissistic" because they merely reflect immediate emotional reactions, and doubted that the reactions of a person aware of being filmed could in fact reflect the honest emotional response promised by the format.
The neuroscientist Lisa Aziz-Zadeh suggested a role for
mirror neurons
A mirror neuron is a neuron that fires both when an animal acts and when the animal observes the same action performed by another. Thus, the neuron "mirrors" the behavior of the other, as though the observer were itself acting. Mirror neurons a ...
in allowing us to share the experience of the person we are watching in a video.
Legal status
The video to which people react is typically shown within the reaction video, allowing the reaction video's viewers to see what is being reacted to. This has led to controversy regarding the extent and conditions under which reacting to another creator's content falls under the doctrine of
fair use
Fair use is a Legal doctrine, doctrine in United States law that permits limited use of copyrighted material without having to first acquire permission from the copyright holder. Fair use is one of the limitations to copyright intended to bal ...
in US law.
In the case of
Bilibili
Bilibili (stylized in all lowercase), nicknamed B Site, is a Chinese online video sharing website based in Shanghai where users can submit, view, and add overlaid commentary on videos.
Bilibili hosts videos on various themes, including ...
v.
Youku
Youku Tudou Inc. (formerly Youku Inc.), doing business as Youku (), is a video streaming service and former video sharing website based in Beijing, China. It operates as a subsidiary of Alibaba Group Holding Limited.
Youku has its headquart ...
(2023), Bilibili was found liable in a copyright infringement lawsuit concerning reaction videos on its platform related to the TV series ''
Word of Honor'', and was ordered to compensate Youku 350,000 yuan. The People's Court of
Yangpu District
Yangpu () is one of the 16 districts of Shanghai. It is located in the northeastern part of downtown Shanghai, bordering the Huangpu River on the east and south, Hongkou on the west, and Baoshan on the north. The southern part of Yangpu Dist ...
,
Shanghai
Shanghai, Shanghainese: , Standard Chinese pronunciation: is a direct-administered municipality and the most populous urban area in China. The city is located on the Chinese shoreline on the southern estuary of the Yangtze River, with the ...
, determined that reaction videos did not qualify as fair use and that the creators had not gained proper authorization, leading to an
infringement of the rights to information network transmission
of the involved work.
See also
*
''React'' (media franchise)
Notes
References
{{reflist
Media sharing
Internet culture