The rise of [Reaction Content] on YouTube

Piyush
Aug 29, 2020
5 min read

Updated: Jan 24, 2021

"Don't follow trends, start trends"

- Frank Capra

YouTube has been a dominant video-sharing platform for about 15 years.

From gaming to roasting, technology to innovation, commerce to trade, movies to books, Kpop to south-east Asian traditional fishing, and so on and on and on; one can find anything he wants on the American video-sharing platform. It is the 2nd most visited website, only after google.com. Thus, it mustn't be of any surprise to one that it is one of the most trend-influencing websites in the world.

One of these trends is the growing channels of "reaction videos".

Now, until last year I never really cared for people who make reaction videos and upload them up on YouTube. Recommendations like "Pakistani reacts to CarryMinati" or "American reaction to JordIndian" used to show up in my feed, and I just used to dodge them all.

It was only during the CarryMinati-Amir Siddiqui battle that I decided to watch a reaction video. Carry had released his new song "Yalgaar", which was released about 3 weeks after YouTube deleted his Yt vs TikTok video on grounds of malicious insults (which, when we compare to the abuses given by H3H3 and PewDiePie, were nothing). Below the video, there was a recommendation "Yalgaar reaction by Japanese"(Violinist Kohei). And that was the moment when I got introduced to the world of reaction channels.

"Why are reaction channels so popular and trending?"

I definitely cannot make you completely understand this, but in the best way I can put it:

people watch reaction videos after watching the original video hoping that they have the same opinions about it.

If you witness a fight between the biggest bullies in school, why would you tell your friends or classmates? Because is it important to make everyone know about what is going on in school? Of course not! You actually do it because you either want to see if they think about the incident in the same way as you do or just see what they think of it. In some cases, you might even add on things that didn't really happen but you just want to make it more attention-grabbing, isn't it? P.S. it's alright if you've done it a lot of times, I am no different \(￣︶￣*\)).

"Why do people really make reaction videos?"

it requires literally not much hard work, but rewards amazingly!

Okay, you might haven't heard of reaction time or no life Shaq, but you definitely have heard of SSSniperWolf (if you haven't, she's a British Youtuber who makes reaction and gaming videos and has a massive subscribe count of 21.7million subscribers 🙄). Yes, reaction channels do attract a lot of viewers and subscribers. The reason is the same. There is no data on how many reaction channels are there on YouTube, but I believe, there will be enough reaction videos on any trending content on YouTube out there for you to last a whole day.....

"Foreigners reacting on Indian content"

Yes, some foreigners react to Indian YouTubers and are very prosperous. I know this may sound like an insignificant sub-topic, but I think that there is another reason why foreigners reacting to Indian entertainment are very successful in addition to the main reason.

We Indians are of course, really proud of our country. Thus we are also eager to listen to foreigners who are fond of Indian entertainment, to see what they think of our entertainment/culture/traditions/ and so on, and expect a really positive reaction. Thus, if you are a foreigner and frequently just positively react to Indian things, you're sure to earn a lot of subscribers and views (believe me or not!)

Top reaction channels reacting on Indian videos

At the end of this blog, I feel compelled to share a list of two out of all those YouTubers who give reactions to mostly Indian content and are very successful.

(This is not a complete list because endless channels are giving such reactions... I am just sharing the ones whom I have viewed the most).

1). Jaby Koay

With about 1.5 million subscribers, American YouTuber Jaby Koay has clearly one of the most prominent reaction channels in the world. He makes reaction videos on Bollywood, YouTubers like CarryMinati, JordIndian, BB Ki Vines, and so on, interviews YouTubers, makes live stream videos, reacts to memes made by Indian fans for him, and so on. One can see him sitting alone, with his friends or girlfriends (mostly Achara Kirk- actress and a YouTuber who makes gaming videos) and just react to the contents. He has also made few short tribute videos for his father (Stephen Vincent Alba) [1955-2013]), which I found really sweet.

Jaby has some sort of a cool personality (no doubt why he gets so many girls😏). You'd find his laugh very enduring and he always gives a reasonable statement for any subject(what I like him for).

Click on the picture to view Jaby's channel

2). Violinist Kohei

This guy is the reason why I decided to venture into the world of reaction videos. As mentioned earlier, I was watching his reaction to the Yalgaar song. I was really astonished to see a Japanese speak so fluent Hindi( Yes, he speaks Hindi). He also plays the violin. Apparently, he had been in Mumbai for four years. But he definitely speaks Hindi better than me, better than you, better than any average Indian. He makes all his videos in Hindi, referring to his Indian subscribers as "Mere subscribers, yaani Mere Bharatiya Parivaar ke sadasya" at the start of every video. Only 1 month earlier or so, he had just a little over 1 million subscribers and he has already defeated Jaby Koay by about 150k subs. There is no clear reason how he managed to get such a spike, but CarryMinati had once mentioned in his Livestream about Kohei saying that he was impressed by how he spoke Hindi so well and how he played the violin with the tune of the song. He even commented on the video, to which Kohei was amazed and thankful in his next video. Due to this, people Carry's fans might have been intrigued by the Japanese fellow and hence the spike. This is the link to the video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N13OV_Z-yq0

Kohei is one of the sweetest personalities I have ever seen on the internet and you too would certainly love to watch him reacting to things going on hot in India. (Although he does make a lot of dramatic edits in his videos not gonna lie)