re: Reaction videos of black people watching white people music

People love to hate on reaction videos, and a lot of them are fake and lame, but the goods ones are a lot of fun. Closest you can ever get to erasing your brain and experiencing something awesome again for the first is time is watching through the eyes of someone seeing it for the first time.

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It’s ALL fake

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Look, you have no idea if it’s “all” fake. You think its fake, but how fake is it?

It seems very plausible that some youtuber has made a channel and “followers” send in recommendations for songs to react to.

Are some, or even many, of the songs ones that they’ve at least heard once before? Of course.

But there are lots of songs that people suggest that tbey’ve never heard before.

Hell, if I’m with a group of friends talking about music, and three of them agree that I HAVE GOT TO HEAR A SONG that I’ve never heard before, not only am I gonna listen to it with a hopeful open mind, and listen carefully, the other 3 guys are gonna be listening closely too with fresh ears because they want to be sure its as good as they remembered because they recommended it and dont want to look foolish.

Suppose those same friends recommend a song that I didn’t know, but upon hearing it, it does actually sound familiar. I’m still gonna listen to it intently with new ears to see if I like it as much as they do.

The whole concept seems very plausible, even if they have already heard some of the music in the past. I can also believe that its actually fun for thr youtuber to actually hear a new song and give their honest reaction, so they don’t have to pretend.

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its actually fun for thr youtuber to actually hear a new song and give their honest reaction, so they don’t have to pretend.

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The youtuber isn't giving an honest reaction though. I've watched hundreds of those reaction videos (mainly because I want to hear the song being reviewed) and they love and rave about every single song. I've never heard one time a YouTube say "That song sucked." No one loves every song they hear but they play to their subscribers who want to see them love it so they do.

Black People are Big Mad that Elvis Presley is the greatest entertainer ever and it’s not close. There will never be another Elvis Presley.

The funniest one Ive seen is one of those meta-reaction compilations that was covering Living Color’s Cult of Personality , and all of the black reviewers were going “Wait, a Black rock band???”

I just remembered a true reaction I saw in real life. In the 90's, senior in high school, Sociology Class (an elective, for seniors that already had all their basic coursework done). The teacher was a middle aged black lady, Ms. Pritchard. Toward the end of the semester there was a "project" where everyone got to bring in a tape or CD of their favorite song, with some rules of course, then the class raises their hands and share what they think about the song/lyrics/social aspects yada yada.

Most kids were bringing in relatively modern songs, I brought in "Us and Them" from Dark Side of the Moon, the one with the buttery saxaphone solo. She was a jazz/R&B fan, had never even heard of Pink Floyd, and it brought her to tears. She said she went out and bought every single Pink Floyd album after that.

Not a video, actually face to face in the room reaction of a black person hearing "white" song for the first time and having an authentic emotional positive reaction.

I've tried to watch YouTube reaction videos but I find very little joy in them because I was born with a laser sharp bullshite detector. I've seen one here and there that I could sense was somewhat authentic. The vast majority are not.

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The 70s and 80s was my era so maybe I just assume kids today (that like rock) have heard that music.

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I grew up in that era as well. And I have three kids that I raised properly on that music era, but let me tell you, they mostly stand apart from the rest of their generation.

I took my young 20ish daughters to the Earth Wind and Fire concert at JazzFest. They sang every word to every song! All the Gen x’ers and Boomers in the crowd were so impressed.

But when the girls tell this story to their friends, almost None of them knew who Earth Wind and Fire were, and didn’t know the song September.

A large chunk of Millennials and especially Gen Z are not familiar with music before 1995.

It's always struck me that people like watching these because it is a form of confirmation bias. "Ooooh this "classical composer" likes a song I like, therefore what I like must be OK!".

Or it gives the viewer a feeling of some sort of superiority over the listener. "Wow this person didn't know [insert something I have known for decades] this just shows how [smart/cool/superior] I am!"

It is ultimately seeking approval from someone, usually outside of the viewer's normal milieu, that can then be used to validate the viewer on some level.

And MANY of these YT channels have figured that out and that that can be used to get views, and (possibly) ultimately $$$. This is why I am dubious about many of the "first time" claims.