My favorite is a side-by-side of Jimmy Fallon and Lin-Manuel Miranda listening to the Hamilton Polka.
I’ve been watching a bunch of these also, I see several of the same youtubers that I like to watch…here are a couple of additional fun ones I hope aren’t repeats…I agree with the poster upthread that Alex and Andy are a great blend of dopey and insightful 
I love watching Elizabeth Zharoff react to other performers’ work. Here’s my favorite- her reaction to Homefree’s Man of Constant Sorrow.
I think I’m in love with her.
Hey! I have dibs on her. But my favorite reaction of hers is Johnny Cash’s “Hurt”
I got a kick out of two metalheads getting freaked out by Billie Eilish’s “You Should See Me In A Crown”. It’s hilarious to see two hairy, tough-guy adult men be skeeved by a 17 year old girl with spiders crawling all over her. They really lose it when she opens her mouth and her pet tarantula crawls out.
Before reading the OP I did not know about reaction videos, but I’ve watched about 40 now. I do feel a little skeevy about the phenomenon, cause it seems like people stroking boomers to get some view counts that they can maybe monetize.
And, like you burpo, I rarely watch reaction videos to widen my musical horizons – I just do it to relisten to favorites, and hear the reactors make some extremely basic comments (since it’s often their first time hearing the song).
All that said, my favorite guy is DramaSydE, who justs gets a couple thousand views per video, and is a black guy who says he likes all type of music, but has preferred classic rock since he was a kid. He loves Steely Dan, and my favorite video is his reaction to Black Cow, Aja, Deacon Blues, and Peg.
Anyone who likes Steely Dan would probably have a good time by putting on a pair of headphones and listening along.
Yeah, I’ve wondering about this. It seems like they’re skirting copyright issues by transforming some music into a reaction video and making money from it. Maybe I’m wrong and they’re paying royalties and then the original artists should be grateful, but otherwise I don’t see any value added to the original work.
Some reaction videos seem to have extremely reduced sound quality. I’ve heard reactors complain about copyright issues, and even supply links to better sounding videos. But I haven’t researched the details. Of course, different artists allow different things.
If they’re smart, they would buy the license – which should be a deductible business expense – then send in the list of which songs they use and how many times each one’s used, then they’d be in the clear. Whether that is lucrative, you got me.
It’s not that simple. The copyright holder can file a claim with Youtube, in which case any ad revenues will go to the claimant. The person who posted the reaction can dispute the claim, if he or she feels it was transformed enough that it’s a derivative work, or should have an exemption as criticism or education. Youtube will look into it and decide whether the claim should be upheld or overturned.
There are reactors who expect their videos to be claimed. They make their money not directly from Youtube hits, but from some form of sponsorship, like in-video ads (as opposed to Youtube ads) or Patreon. In cases like these, they’re actually making money for the copyright holder., who gets the Youtube revenue for no work on their part.
It’s also possible for a copyright holder to ask for a derivative video to be blocked. When this happens, no one can watch the video, and no one makes any money from it. Again, the party who posted it can file a dispute, in which case Youtube will decide whether the video should be made watchable again.
That sounds like a pretty comprehensive method of resolving these matters. At least giving the opportunity for copyright owners a chance to control there content. I don’t know how the line gets drawn on transforming a work. Frankly, I don’t think watching someone react to some copyrighted music any kind of significant transformation.
One of the worst cases I’ve seen was a video of a magician reacting to another magician’s act on Penn&Teller’s Fool Us. That whole show is about Penn&Teller reacting to the magic acts on their show. That video showed up on YouTube just days after the the act was aired for the first time.
I do. If I want to listen to a song, I’m going to put on the original. I don’t want to hear someone starting and stopping the song and oohing and aahing. When I want to watch a reaction, I’m paying attention to those oohs and aahs, and not the song I’ve heard a thousand times before. Completely different use case, completely different work, IMHO.
Same goes for reactions to TV shows, which I do watch a lot of. I’m not using it to watch a show I haven’t seen before. Why would I want my first experience of the show in question to be a cut down version with interruptions? What I’m watching for there is the emotional response of the reactor, and their commentary on something I’ve already seen.
The Penn & Teller case is perhaps different. If one didn’t have access to the show and wanted to see the trick, they could do probably do so, ignoring the reactor, assuming they didn’t cut anything out. But it would still be a substandard version of the original. If that’s not a transformation, what is?
That’s a point of view I haven’t heard much of. So we are alike when it comes to listening to the original work. Stopping and starting for reactions makes a mess of the work. I just never wanted to see people’s reactions to most things. I don’t recall any notable reactions that I’ve seen, and if you don’t stop the music and the reactions aren’t loud then they wouldn’t bother me. I’m just a not that kind of person who is that interested in reactions themselves.
So it is good that at least you are finding something valuable here. I wonder then how well these videos do it. I’ve only seen a few, probably didn’t pay much attention to the reaction part. What would I look for as a good reaction experience? I don’t think I’ll make a habit of it but I guess I could try looking at some from this different slant.
For me, I’m only really watching reaction videos for songs that I already know we’ll, so it isn’t a music experience so much as it is a chance to see other people’s insight or interpretation of what they like in the music. Some, like from Rick Beato or Charismatic Voice, also go into academic music theory , which I am mostly ignorant of, and I’ve expanded my knowledge quite a lot.
I would think that there would be some value to the original work. People may watch reaction videos to music that they had not previously encountered, and then want to listen to the original.
Anyway, the reaction videos that I’ve seen that I found most interesting were people encountering Pink Floyd for the first time. I’ve heard their albums so many times that I sometimes forget how original and different their sound is.
There are so many, I can’t find it right now, and I’ll have to look again when I’m able to listen, but there is one where a guy is listening to “The Great Gig in the Sky” and he was straight up crying during Tory’s vocals. He’d pause, compose himself, and try to start up again. At one point, he’s kinda like, “How much longer can this go on?”
I can’t claim to really understand it myself. I’ve tried to explain the appeal, but I can’t really. I just get some kind of voyeuristic thrill from it. I guess I love being surprised by things, particularly in film/TV.
I can’t have that “first time” reaction myself a second time, to a big twist. So the next best thing is watching someone else’s jaw drop.
If you didn’t pay attention to the reaction part, you’re doing it wrong.
Well yeah, from your point of you. The reactions aren’t that great to me, but tastes vary. This just remined of something that is not a reaction video per se, but there are wonderful reactions to see.
In this clip from A Night at the Opera Chico Marx entertains children at the piano. In another clip, Harpo clowns with the piano and then moves on to a harp performance.
The reactions of the extras in those scenes are genuine, unscripted and unprompted. They are reacting to actually witnessing these wonderful entertaining performances.
I’d like to put together a series of “reaction videos” of people finding out that this is actually a thing.
Two brothers in their early-20s enjoying Stevie Wonder’s Superstition:
A boyfriend and a girlfriend blown away by Bohemian Rhapsody (but ESPECIALLY the guy):
There are a few (The Homies, James v Cinema, and Ashleigh Burton, who was mentioned above, to name a couple) who do reactions to full-length movies. They’ll edit it down to about 20-30 minutes for YouTube, with longer versions on other sites, and it’s really interesting to see them react to, say, the Omaha Beach scene in Saving Private Ryan.
It’s like rediscovering these movies again when you watch someone else experience it for the first time.