Go to YouTube and type “Reaction Video” in the search box. Alternatively, make it specific and type “reaction video” plus the name of your favorite band. Or your favorite basketball player. Or the trailer of a movie you like. You’ll find tons (depending on the popularity of the topic) of what is known as a reaction video. That is, a video of a person’s reaction watching another video. But why do people make reaction videos?
More importantly, what does making a reaction video tell us about society?
Reaction videos are a form of societal interaction
Remember my article on coffee and summer afternoons? This one is a bit like that. It’s just something spawning out of my head, without much thought, without any preparation. In a way, it serves a somewhat therapeutic function. Then again, isn’t all writing like that? Isn’t all writing a giant middle finger pointing upward, toward the cosmic joker? So, treat today’s article as the workings of the unconscious mind. Yes, it is about chess – and five reasons why I like chess – but deep down it’s just about me being frustrated with the world right now.
Chess. So captivating, so simple, so complex.(more…)
I’ve said in the past how memory is everything for a writer. More importantly, however, it’s precisely the memorable experience that is useful for authors. In other words, experiencing something that affects you helps create an image of the experience. This mental image, though accessible only by and through your mind, is very vivid and powerful in terms of affect. Perhaps it is its very nature – abstract, rare, living its ghostly existence only in your consciousness – that gives it its power. Compare that with the modern habit of taking too many photos without the experiences associated with them.
It’s insidious.
I doubt – though nowadays, you never know – you took actual photos during your first date with your loved one. Which one do you remember the best, particularly in terms of affect? The first date from ten years ago with zero photos or a vacation four years ago with hundreds of actual photos (and plenty more selfies)?
Taking too many photos without the experiences the photos refer to renders them both meaningless. Let’s see why, and it’s particularly from an author’s standpoint I’m examining this. It all began… with a dream.
I’m using this image to connote the concept of “memorable experience”. But from the couple’s own perspective, the only image of their experience worth having is the one in their minds(more…)
