"The defining art form of our times might be the reaction video. You've surely seen a few: some influencer gasping, or screaming, or doing bug eyes as they take in a much-hyped new song or a movie's big twist. The point is to bottle unpredictable, sizzling human emotion into rewatchable content. Scrolling on one's phone can be a deadening experience, but here's someone feeling, or at least pretending to feel, a genuine feeling-even if the abundance of these videos surely numbs us further."
"Last week, a video of Hasan Piker reacting to the sight of Charlie Kirk getting shot during a discussion at Utah Valley University on Wednesday quickly accumulated millions of views. It was unwittingly made: Piker, a leftist commentator and video-game influencer, was broadcasting live on the streaming platform Twitch on Wednesday, browsing around the internet in an attempt to nail down the truth of what had happened. In an automatic-thinking patter, he said, "There's a closer footage of Charlie Kirk getting shot in the neck here as well where you can clear-" and here he recoiled as the video played out of sight from the audience-"Ohhhh, he's dead. Oh my God, he's definitely dead. Oh my God. I can't believe I just saw that.""
Reaction videos capture and commodify spontaneous, sizzling human emotion and convert it into rewatchable content. Scrolling through feeds can feel deadening, but reaction clips present someone feeling, or appearing to feel, a genuine emotion, even as abundance of such videos may further numb audiences. Hasan Piker reacted live while searching for footage of Charlie Kirk being shot, expressing shock and disbelief as he processed a gory, personal event on stream. Charlie Kirk functioned as both political operator and entertainer, and content creators now inhabit an ascendant class facing mortal threats tied to the culture they helped create.
Read at The Atlantic
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