Popular music reaction videos

Reactivity, creator labor, and the performance of listening online

Bibliographic Data

ID12656149
AuthorsByrd Mcdaniel (0000-0001-6413-9114, Northeastern University, corresponding author)
Year2020
Volume23
Issue6
Pages1624-1641
Publication date2020-06-02
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueNew Media & Society (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1461-4448 • E-ISSN: 1461-7315
PublisherSAGE Publishing (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1177/1461444820918549
OpenAlexW3034015283
LanguageEN
Citations received13
References cited27

In popular music reaction videos, performers on YouTube—called “creators”—record their reactions to popular music, filming themselves as they listen to music recordings and watch music videos. The profitability and appeal of popular music reaction videos can be explained by a quality I call reactivity. Reactivity describes the approach that creators take to listening, as they heighten and exaggerate their affective experience of music media. Reactivity also describes their goals for creating these reaction videos, which they hope will provoke subsequent reactions among viewers. Reactions among their viewers translate into more views, shares, and ultimately more power for the creators. By drawing on observations and interviews with nine creators, I demonstrate how reactivity can enable creators of color and queer creators to counter problematic and dominant forms of listening to popular music, while also enabling privileged creators to treat exploitative listening as a kind of virtuosic act of consumption

Active listening · Advertising · Aesthetics · Art · Business · Consumption (sociology · Multimedia · Music education · Music industry · Popular music · Reactivity (psychology · Visual arts · Cinema and Media Studies · Communication · Computer Science · Gender, Feminism, and Media · Music History and Culture · Psychology

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