YouTube, as a content creation platform, viewers are not just passive content recipients but also can create content through comments, sharing, and re-creation. Among them, reaction videos, an emerging form of creation, embody the distinctiveness of this role reversal. The emotional reactions, cultural interpretations, and humorous expressions of platform users are repackaged and recreated, and then become new creative materials.

Take YouTube videos as an example. This video, which features a group of bloggers listening to Kendrick Lamar’s song Not Like Us and reacting to it, has attracted 4.9 million views and 4,000 comments, making it a typical reaction video. Bloggers share their perceptions of music through audiovisual experiences and personal interpretations, creating a community that interacts with the audience in the comment section, further deepening their sense of participation.

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Furthermore, creating this kind of compilation video reflects the transformation of the audience from passive consumers to active creators. According to McDaniel, the core of reaction videos lies in the experience of “watching others watch,” this kind of secondary creation transforms individual feelings into a public cultural activity (2020, pp. 1627-1628). Especially in music, reaction videos not only convey the emotional meaning of the work but also give it a new level of interpretation as re-creation.

Screenshot: https://youtu.be/YghDpAEECs8?si=UXrHPHAcQCknj4DN

Overall, this content format also reflects the multiple facets of creator labour in the age of social media. Digital platforms provide creators with chances to express their individuality but also embed economic pressures and algorithm-driven creative constraints (Cunningham and Craig, 2019). Compilation videos attempt to find a balance in a dynamic economy; evolving from the personal expression of a single creator to a collective narrative practice, they highlight the expanding creative boundaries and cultural agency of audiences in digital audiovisual culture.

References:

Cunningham, S. and Craig, D.R. (2019). Social media entertainment: the new intersection of Hollywood and Silicon Valley. New York: New York University Press.

McDaniel, B. (2020). ‘Popular music reaction videos: Reactivity, creator labor, and the performance of listening online’, New Media and Society, 23(6), pp. 1624-1641.

REACTORS GOIN’ CRAZY | RGC. (2024). Kendrick Lamar – Not Like Us | Uncut Reaction Mashup [online]. YouTube. Available at: https://youtu.be/YghDpAEECs8?si=kcyBq7EDlr0RTUWd [Accessed 20 Nov. 2024].

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