I was completely ignorant of the phenomenon of “reaction videos,” where one or more individuals watch another video, usually of a song they have never heard before, and record their reaction to this first hearing, until the reaction of the twins Fred and Tim Williams to Phil Collins’ song “I can Feel It in the Air Tonight” went viral. Since then, I’ve been spending way too much time watching them. Most of these videos show millennials (or younger) seeing a song video or listening to a song that was a big hit sometime during my youth, but of course, the people doing the reaction have never heard of the song, or heard of the band or artist who performed it. Not always, but often the listener reacts positively, and a few times (such as in the linked video above), there’s great enthusiasm for the song. That kind of reaction is greatly gratifying to an old guy like me, a justification of the musical tastes of my youth.
I’ve discovered a sub-genre of these videos, where a Black person reacts to a song where he or she thinks the artist is also Black, but turns out to be white. The song that garners the biggest surprise is usually the Righteous Brothers’ “You’ve Lost that Loving Feeling” in a TV performance where they start singing when you can only see their profiles. Then the lights come up, the listener pauses the video, and they say “Two white dudes? Naw!” It’s also interesting to see the reaction of the women when they get to the line “Baby, baby, I’ll get down on my knees for you.”
But the funniest reaction video of this sort I’ve found is one where a young man (LFR Jojo) discovers that the Bee Gees are white, and he comes to question his identity and his own place in the Black community. (I’m not entirely sure I believe he didn’t know they were white before he saw the video, but his commentary is so hilarious, I don’t even care.)
Barry Gibb is white Jesus? LOLOLOLOL!
That’s all I can manage tonight.
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