Reaction videos?
“This is numbing stuff, ideal for an evening of lite binging in a hypnagogic state of half-attention. It is content that demands no response from me — not simply because it is non-narrative and ambiently pleasing, but because any response I’m likely to have is already incorporated into the content itself. The content arrives pre-metabolized, pre-experienced; all I have to do is absorb it.”
Every day, the internet demonstrates, in a rather anxious manner, the extent to which it is willing to make us “absorbers.” We’re past the point of being “consumers”; when eating, for example, we still have to expend energy to use a fork or to chew in order to consume and digest our food properly. But instead, as “absorbers,” we expend even less energy. Like a sponge, any absorbent object can fulfill its purpose instantly, just as long as it is placed in an environment where there’s something to soak up. The water spilled on the countertop does not have to be broken down or masticated before the sponge can absorb it. Sponges do not use energy to absorb. If we are like sponges in that we are capable of passively yet sufficiently “soaking up” the content in which we are placed, what does that mean for us as individuals, as thinkers, as supposed agents of free will when we navigate the Wild Wild Web? When does “absorbing” turn into “drowning”?
Mitch Therieau, author of this article on the popularity of “reaction content,” posits this phenomenon as one in which “reaction” is the glue of online life, going so far as to suggest that all content on the internet can be called “reaction content.” Through several examples of “reaction videos,” Therieau exposes the cyber craving for the likes of “reality,” “humanity,” and “universality” that manifests in the search for and absorption of reaction content. Whatever internet denizens may be lacking–whether that lack was precipitated by the medium itself or not–YouTubers are willing to exploit it, and we are willing to absorb it. Therieau wonders, in an openly cynical manner, if this “reaction genre” on the internet is not an ode to the perseverance of human affect, but instead “a kind of lab-grade, industrial-strength, self-propagating supercontent.” By making entertainment out of emotional knee jerk reactions, content creators manage to extend the lifespan of viral videos, generating (potentially viral) “reaction content” for already-viral videos and thus creating “supercontent.” What is the motive behind this? If “reaction content creators” didn’t make the original viral video themselves, then what stake do they have in its continued success? Why do they want to own our reactions, our attention? Why do they make content “absorbable”? And why do we, as “absorbers” of online content, buy into this process?
Anne S. Thesia
The latest in Smart Shit:
Feel for You
Why do people like videos of other people reacting to videos?
Read it here: https://reallifemag.com/feel-for-you/
