I recently saw the “tribal people react to…” Bohemian Rhapsody video. One of the things I noticed was that they were very impressed by Freddie Mercury’s performance, and there was only a brief reference to his homosexuality and death from AIDS. They were also interested by the use of “bismallah” in the lyrics.
Yes, but their mugging for the camera is the whole point. If they just watched the movie in silence and didn’t say anything until the end, well that would be hella boring, wouldn’t it.
Which apparently means “blessing.”
Which really got me off on a roll about interpreting the lyrics to Bohemian Rhapsody. The narrator feels condemned by his actions, but I think you could take “Bismillah!” as his community trying to embrace him or offer him redemption, and him rejecting any comfort. They aren’t the ones saying there’s a devil put aside for him - he is.
It’s a very interesting song, especially through the lens of Freddie’s sexuality.
Which I noted they neatly sidestepped for the purposes of the video.
I don’t think it’s surprising most 25 year olds are unfamiliar with it. I’m sure many encountered it playing Guitar Hero: Warriors of Rock, or the Wayne’s World movie, though.
ETA: I probably should have mentioned the 2018 film Bohemian Rhapsody, too.
If I remember correctly one of the tribals started to bring it up and was more or less shut down.
Singing in the Rain was an old movie when I was 25, but I was aware of it. You should have picked a more obscure song; Bohemian Rhapsody is kind of hard to avoid.
Then that isn’t their honest reaction, that is what they think will get the clicks. Why want to watch people pretend to react strongly in a way that they wouldn’t react if they weren’t trying to make a popular video? That’s just improv acting.
So 25 year olds didn’t grow up in houses with DVDs? Not to mention Guitar Hero and the Bohemian Rhapsody movie in 2018.
You should have picked a more obscure song, dude.
I’m American and 40+ and don’t think I knowingly heard the entire song until I was over 40. Might have been on the radio, but I didn’t process/recognize it (saw either WW or WW2 once, but since I don’t even remember which, I obviously don’t remember the music). My parents and brothers didn’t listen to it (we were all quite casual listeners of music), and I didn’t seek it out until a few years ago and then only because I was online and a bunch of people were talking about it. I’d imagine younger people (not specifically/particularly interested in music) would be far less likely to have heard it/remember it, since they can curate their music listening so easily to only hear certain types.
Or perhaps even worse: they know of it, but not as a self-standing piece in its own merit, but in some extraneous context. So yes, it is plausible they really had never sat down to listen to the original with intentionality. It sounds familiar and Uncle Dave keeps going on about it but to them it’s “whatever”
But yeah, really, a lot of “milestone” songs/movies/art/etc. from 20+ years “before my time” will not be that familiar to the person, especially with the hyperfragmentation of popular culture in the past decades.
That does not mean that some of the “reacting” is not knowingly tweaked for engagement. But that has to be expected especially of those who grew up with it. If too obvious, I turn it off
I find it totally believable. I was born in 1983 and didn’t watch Star Wars until I was 18, or know anything about classic rock, which is now one of my favorite genres. I never discovered sci-Fi popular media until my early 20s, or RPG video games. Whether a young person is exposed to something generally depends on their culture, their parents, their friends. And in a lot of cases, the people discovering classic rock for the first time are young people who listen almost exclusively to hip-hop. And even those kids might not have been exposed to early examples of the genre they love.
One of the reaction genres I enjoy is watching young gay men experience Madonna videos for the first time. They might know the songs, they might even know she was a gay icon, but their reaction is golden when they discover why she is a gay icon.
I’m sure some people are lying/faking but a lot of them openly acknowledge having heard the song, just not really sitting down and listening to it.
There was the critically acclaimed biopic starring Rami Malek that was released a few years ago, just sayin’. I saw it, and my opinion of it was colored by the fact that I knew they took some VERY wide liberties with the timeline. However, for someone who wasn’t familiar with their music or their back story, it would be considered a very good movie.
You forgot the movie from just 8 years ago. And now you’ve moved the goalposts to youths under the age of 25. I’m sure nearly all four year-olds are unfamiliar with the song. I’d bet good money that at least 50 percent of 25 year-olds know it. In the USA, that is. The number is probably higher in the UK.
I live next door to 17 year-old twins, so I asked them if they’d ever heard of Bohemian Rhapsody. They both nodded and one started singing ‘mamma mia mamma mia.’ They know it because their 46 year-old dad l likes it. And that’s how a lot of this works.
Neither do I; my brain doesn’t work that way. But that doesn’t mean there aren’t people whose brain does work that way, at least if they put it on the right setting.
Consider the reactions of a reacter (the things they say, their facial expressions, etc.). I can believe that some people genuinely have reactions like those interiorly, in their mind, to whatever the reacter is reacting to. And I can believe that there are people with the ability to take what’s going on inside their mind and externalize it. And I know that many of us humans are interested in knowing and sharing in what’s going on inside the minds of our fellow humans.
Again, I agree. But what if you’re drunk and bored at 3am and all your friends on the planet are at least half a continent away? Reaction videos have their place.