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Reaction Video
What has been seen cannot be unseen.
Summary
Reaction Videos (aka My Reaction to X) is a phenomenal trend on YouTube which usually consist of those new to the world of the internets recording their reaction to sites or videos with horrific and shocking content. The trend originally sprung out into popularity with one video that had a person freaking out to 2girls1cup, and from this spawned many others. Although reaction videos are mostly on YouTube, there have been other video websites that have similar videos.
Origins
In the earlier days, reaction videos mainly were intended as a prank amongst friends/family who would show an unsuspecting victim a "cool website" and would record their reaction to upload on YouTube or some other video sharing service. One of the first of these to have gone viral were videos of someone playing that Scary Maze game, and a screamer would pop up, scaring them to death.
From there, many followed in suit to prank their friends with whatever prank they could acquire, whether they were screamers or shock sites. As with anything coming from YouTube, once others were aware of it, they began to plot their own reaction videos in hopes of reaching attention and many views. Soon enough, rather than to be pranked (while most "pranks" were fake) some decided it would be just easier to do a video by themselves, by entering a shock site and recording their reaction to it. The authenticity of many of these videos are reasonably questionable; some are easy to be determined as fraudulent while others seem quite convincingly real. Either way, to those that matter, the videos usually hold no concern.
Though, typical of many YouTubers, some decided it would a much simpler process to steal reaction videos with over 100,000 views and claim them as their own (much like when any other trending video with a lot of views are uploaded).
Non-Shock Reaction Videos
Of course, shock content wasn't the only thing people would post their reactions to. There would also be particular videos, such as normal viral videos, politics, current events, etc. in which people would post a video citing what they felt about the particular subject. These would include peoples' opinion, bringing out pseudo-intellectuals and faux social activists alike in hopes of educating people.
MFW Videos
Not all reaction videos on YouTube consist of people freaking out to images of grotesque fetishes of bizarre and disgusting sexual activity and/or gross out images. As 4chan culture became more mainstream on the internet, so did their memes and in-jokes. Some reaction videos, which would be ripped from media such as popular TV shows, games, etc., would also be used as a substitute, or a better alternative, when one needed a reaction image, or in this case, a reaction video. Such examples include Nope.avi, which became not only a popular reaction video, but a meme as well.
This variety of reaction videos are usually quite short, most being less than a minute long in duration, being straight to the point.
Current status
Quite active, especially if new shock content is discovered
Videos
Related Pages
You can find additional phenomena here.
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