Why do We Watch Reaction Videos?
By: Matthew Black
Tags: Television, Media, Internet, Culture, Digital Life

From a sheer thematic standpoint, there is no show more fitting for the reaction format than Sense8. It’s a show about empathy, about being able to feel how someone else is feeling, even if your own life experiences are vastly different.

When reacting to this episode, Jessica finds herself getting surprisingly emotional at Lito’s storyline. Lito’s character is a Mexican movie star whose storyline revolves around him coming out of the closet and having his career and personal life upended. In this episode, he’s faced with the choice of going to a gay pride parade, even though he still isn’t comfortable with being out in public. When the episode ends, Jessica gives her thoughts on what she’s watched.

“I’m gonna talk about Lito’s thing for a second, because I just got a rush of emotions, and I want to explain why, but I’m going to preface it with saying this is not on the same level even remotely but … I related, kind of. Lito’s going through a big change, and a big change of how people perceive him, and I think it would be beautiful for him to go to this gay pride parade and get embraced, but if he’s not ready for that, you can’t really force somebody to do that. Especially coming out with your sexuality and things like that, it’s very difficult. “When I say I relate it’s not with the sexuality, but just in that moment — and I hope you guys understand what I’m saying with this and don’t think that I’m saying it’s on the same level as having to come out with your sexuality or anything like that — but, when the guy was like, ‘you kissed me,’ and that inspired him to propose to his now-husband…”

This is the point where she really starts to get emotional. You can hear her voice tremble, you can see her making an effort not to cry but crying anyway.

“I have, a lot lately, been getting kind of down on the fact that I’m not … I’ve been making these videos for a really long time, and I try to do stuff to … like, fun things for you guys, I try to do things sometimes and … It’s hard not to get down about the fact that there are other people who are just more embraced, and have been doing it for less than a year and they just skyrocket past you... “I made a decision a little while ago because I was getting so fucked up by it in my head, I made a decision to just be like, ‘okay, I’m not going to pay attention to numbers because it’s just messing with my head,’ and I haven’t. But when I saw that scene, I was like … ‘I may not be everyone’s cup of tea, I might not be the type of person that everyone’s going to gravitate to, just like how Lito might not be that type of person everybody’s going to gravitate to, but there are a few people out there, there are a few people out there, that … I mean, I’ve gotten letters from people saying they really appreciate me, and I don’t understand why because I just watch TV.”

Through her tears, she laughs for a moment.

“But, when they say things like that … if you entertain someone for a little bit of time and they appreciate that, that’s what matters. That connection with one person, and sometimes, I mean, I don’t even know a lot of you guys who watch these videos… and that’s why I got emotional because I’ve been struggling with that lately. And like I said, I in no way think that it’s at all comparable to someone having to come out before they were ready to, and all the stuff that Lito’s going through. But in a very small, insignificant way, I related to that, and it got me really emotional, and I feel like if he goes to the gay pride parade he will be embraced and he will feel loved and … lord, that just gets me. I’m really sorry for becoming an emotional fucking mess — what the hell is wrong with me?”

She breaks into laughter again, and this time it has a feeling of relief to it.

“I’m so sorry, what was this? It wasn’t even that emotional. But, anyway, I hope you guys don’t judge me or anything but, I just wanted to be open and honest with you guys…”

I thought this was a beautiful moment.

This informal, spur-of-the-moment speech she gives here is one of the best encapsulations of why long-term reaction channels are so great, why they’re so popular.

One of the reasons Jessica has a loyal fanbase, why she gets letters and gifts in the mail, is because of how frequently she reminds us that she’s a human being with problems and unique opinions like everyone else. For years, she’s talked about the fact that things in her life aren’t always going so great. She’s made it clear on several occasions that a particular scene made her emotional because of how it connected to something she’s currently going through, not just due to the merits of the scene itself.

I’m not clicking on her videos just to see a person react to stuff; I’m clicking on her videos to see what Jessica is going to think about an episode of TV. Will she like it in the same ways that I liked it? Will she figure out a plot twist before it happens?

It’s always nice to watch a video where the reactor responds the same way I responded to the show. When Doctor Who character Clara Oswald gets hit in the face with a newspaper, for instance, Jessica reacts exactly how I did when I saw it for the first time. But it’s even better when I watch a video and the reactor responds differently. Sometimes Jessica laughs at moments I wouldn’t consider funny, sometimes she notices things I didn’t pick up on. Sometimes she doesn’t like a scene I thought she’d like, or likes one I thought she’d hate.

Watching her is an exercise in the limits and transcendences of empathy. On one hand, I understand how she feels at each point of the show and I start to feel the same way. Just watching her face is enough to provoke whatever reaction in me she herself is feeling. When she’s sad, I’m sad, and when she’s happy, I’m happy.

And yet, this empathy is limited by the fact that I will never truly understand what’s going on in her head. I understand when she’s sad, but I’ll never understand exactly why she’s sad unless she feels the need to explain herself at the end of the video. I can make an estimated guess, but as her explanation of her connection with Lito showed, the connections she makes with characters are impossible to figure out just from looking at her face. This is because, as she points out at the end of that Sense8 reaction video, we don’t really know each other.

I know stuff about her — her taste in TV, the layout of her kitchen — but she has no idea who I am. She’s filming herself being open and vulnerable, and I — like thousands of other viewers each week— am sitting there and watching her in complete privacy. I feel like I know her, but she has no idea I exist.

I suppose the reason why Lito’s storyline in Sense8 touched her so much is because it reminded her that she is beloved by many, many people, even if they’re strangers on the internet who will never meet her in person. There are thousands of people like me, watching her videos every week, who rarely comment or send her gifts in the mail but have still formed a meaningful, somewhat bizarre connection with her as a person. I can still vividly remember how emotional she gets when she realized this in the episode, even though this reaction video of hers came out nearly two years ago.

Maybe a lot of people believe that what she does is pointless or silly. But she’s got a loyal group of fans who know she’s doing something much more meaningful than just watching TV, and I hope she always understands that.