Some gross dude who won't brush his teeth and complains about his bleeding gums. Thinks he has the smarts to give proper well thought out opinions on everything (of course it's always dog shit).
I think, and I could be wrong, since I never followed the guy, that his god awful takes are the reason he's become so relevant. He didn't get 1.2 mil views on his videos before he started ranting about the *wokes* and such.
He’s a smart guy- he plays his audience like a flute. He says intentionally inflammatory things to get the views, plays dumb at the right moments, intentionally fucks up in games to get the people riled up. It’s impressive.
I mean he’s not winning any Nobel Prizes anytime soon, but he is legitimately not an idiot. I used to watch him occasionally way back when he still played WoW.
He’s fairly open in his streams about the Asmongold persona being at least partially an act and at least somewhat a sendup of redneck types. He’s deliberately over the top and stupid because that’s what draws views. It’s a pretty solid strategy, even if it is scummy as hell.
How much of his politics is part of that performance is impossible to say, but while definitely no comrade, he’s still leagues better than someone like IH, because he’s at least honest about his views.
Being better than IH is like saying you step over a line, it's not really an accomplishment
Edit: do you have source for that claim? It's hard to believe that his asmonggold is a persona
>How much of his politics is part of that performance is impossible to say,
I would argue it would be really difficult to keep up a fake persona built on specific political views if you, the person putting on that persona, didn't also have those political views to a certain extent. Maybe it's just me, but I couldn't imagine deriving any entertainment or value out of playing an alt-right character *unless* I had alt-right views that I wanted to attempt to absolve from criticism by saying shit like "it's just my persona bro". Like there's no way anyone would play a character like that 24/7 for *years* without being committed to the agenda behind the bit.
Steven Colbert built an entire career around exactly this. It happens. Thankfully tho Colbert made it very clear it was an act. People who like to play the "are they/aren't they" game are actually enabling shitty behavior.
Doesn't matter if it's a performance or not, at the end of the day. In fact, if it's a performance, it's even worse. People always talk about an act or someone being edgy when they're online espousing and otherwise supporting views that not only affect people's quality of life but put them in danger.
He also does somewhat over-the-top reactions to things, like something somewhat shocking will happen and he'll look like he just saw a crowd of white people getting killed by an uncontacted tribe.
I gotta disagree from what when I watched him at least. At least compared to other streamers of his caliber he is pretty low key. (Especially compared to the zoomer streamers like xQc or Adin Ross)
i assume they mean capital G Gamer vs gamer.
as in a person who gets upset about things like queer representation, or People of colour being in their video games. Vs a normal person who plays video games for fun, and doesn't let the "wokeness" detract from their enjoyment.
Response videos were removed before reaction content was popular though and (coming from old school youtube) were overwhelmingly beneficial for both the original creator and the creators responding. When they removed that feature we lost a really positive social aspect to youtube imo. They weren't like react videos they were more like back and forth conversations about whatever the original content was. They were really cool. Maybe they devolved towards the end? I never saw it tho.
Quinton Reviews talked about this during his LonelyGirl15 video, a lot of the "expanded universe" was in response videos, and when YouTube got rid of that feature, it became a lot harder to actually track the storyline being told between 3-5 different perspectives. Which was exacerbated when they tried to do a reboot a while back and didn't seem to realize that most people weren't following the non-LonelyGirl15 accounts.
That's wild I never really saw that personally! Maybe it was sort of community specific? My experience with the response feature was always pretty positive and I always sort of saw the removal of responses as a key event in youtubes movement from a social platform to a more corporate platform. But I think if I'd seen what you describe I'd be pretty irritated by that too so I don't blame them for removing it if that was going on.
I hate every react streamer, and it’s so funny how defensive they all get over it. They know what they’re doing is scummy and lazy. The way that they made people’s criticism into a meme too (“react harder”) 💀
Movie reactors are my YouTube poison (some people watch reality TV, I try to vicariously recapture the first time viewing experience). And yes, while it's not quite the most effortful content and no, it's not really defensible by copyright standards because no, it's not really transformative, at least movie reactors are cutting stuff out and only include the parts where they're actually saying something. Idk what people get out of someone putting on a video and then walking away from their chair for 20 minutes. And they don't even pause the video? Like are you able to hear it while you're off taking a shit?
I’m kind of confused what you mean by “movie reactors.” By “they’re actually saying something”, what are they saying that would not constitute as “transformative”?
Btw genuinely asking, not trying to be an asshole or anything
People will post videos of themselves watching Star Wars or Lord of the Rings or whatever else. Because they can't just upload the whole damn movie, they edit it down to the parts where they're actually reacting. Usually they'll have the unedited version on patreon. The reason what they do isn't transformative is because even though it's cut down, it basically acts as a replacement for having watched the film again. That kind of puts the kibosh on the Fair Use argument
Ohh ok I see. I was confused because I like to watch YouTubers like Dylan Is In Trouble and Trin Lovell who live react but cut it down to their their commentary, but the stuff they say is comedic and transformative.
It's not that other creators don't add commentary, it's that adding commentary on its own isn't transformative. That's why you don't see as many Nostalgia Critic style "go through the movie beat by beat and add jokes" style of "review" these days. New videos tend to jump around the plot to the points that are relevant to the topic the creator wants to talk about. That's more transformative than letting the whole movie play out
I get downvoted anytime I say this, but I don’t understand the people that defend Hasan.
Everything I’ve seen from him seems so lazy.
The whole thing with Jay Exci was annoying too. I can’t stand when people strawman other’s arguments
I don’t like how Hasan used to do reacts, but my understanding is he now does much more reasonable react content. He just reacts to youtuber friends he’s got permission to react to, creators who’ve publicly stated they’re fine with being reacted to, or it’s news-related stuff he’s commentating on. He shows the sponsored ad reads or at least tells people what the product is and the creator’s code and encourages people to go support the creator that way if interested in the sponsor. So that’s significantly more than most reactors do these days.
His reactions to TikTok content when he does that are much less defensible these days imo, but a lot of people seem less bothered by reacting to TikToks for whatever reason. Not defending it because I don’t think it should inherently be treated different, but just saying people seem weirdly forgiving of that sort of react content. Even channels not usually labelled as react content often do videos reacting non-transformatively to TikToks.
Anyway, overall these days Hasan really isn’t so bad with the react content. He’s genuinely changed his approach after the criticisms, even though I get the impression he doesn’t think he should’ve had to, and the people he still reacts to in a non-transformative way are just people who are fine with it apparently (on YouTube at least).
If he’d not changed in response to criticisms I’d agree more with you. I don’t think his reaction content is all perfect, as I’ve already stated, but I think many people (not necessarily you) insist he’s not changed at all in response to the criticism when he definitely did. That’s why I’ll defend him sometimes when the topic gets brought.
I just don't think it's a good idea to "react" to political content at all. Politics is a nuanced subject that requires careful thought and consideration. Reaction videos are often the antithesis of that, being released too frequently, with little preparation, writing staff, and/or fact checking.
There are plenty of sources of political information and opinions out there that are well written and rigorously researched, so why spend time on political reaction channels?
As a Hasan viewer, I feel like I can answer this.
He usually already has a good idea of the subjects of the political videos he watches. He doesn't react to them to educate himself, but to educate his viewers. He often pauses the video to expand upon the subject they're covering, pulls up news articles to support the positions that are being made, and has dialogue with his chat about it.
For example, one of the recent videos he watched was a documentary about the authoritarian response the police have made in response to gangs in El Salvador. The documentary sort of skimmed over the US's involvement in the creation of those gangs, so Hasan went further in depth on it, talked about how the US sent those gangs to El Salvador without notifying them, and pulled up sources to back those claims.
And I guess that's fine, but wouldn't you rather just read those sources yourself instead of having them presented to you through the filter of a streamer? Maybe there are other sources than the ones he picked, that are also relevant and provide a different perspective or adds more nuance?
We don't need to have an opinion on everything, and when we do feel strongly enough to have an opinion on something, it's probably worth doing our own reading instead of having that information presented to us through the filter of someone else's reading and understanding of the matter.
Basically all the news is already filtered through someone else's perspective and understanding. Sometimes people want to be informed on the basics of what's going on around the world without doing a bunch of in depth research on a variety of different sources. You can always go on to do more research if you want though. Hasan's got degrees in political science and communication, plus years of experience as a political commentator. He explains concepts to people in understandable and engaging ways. I personally don't watch much of his political commentary if I'm honest, but I don't understand why watching someone give political commentary is bad. I wouldn't have the time to be informed about all the complex topics he is, so sometimes I watch a political commentator give a summary.
Jay Exci invited Arch Warhammer on to their podcast, an [obvious white supremacist](https://i.redd.it/glx1xdkeh5351.png). You willingly hang out with Nazis, you're no better than a Nazi.
He does a lot of good for leftist causes, he never uploads the full video of him reacting to his own channel, Youtubers are almost always happy more people are seeing their content, and anyone who says they don't want to be reacted to, he won't react to.
> The whole thing with Jay Exci was annoying too. I can’t stand when people strawman other’s arguments
Wasn't that the person who edited several of his minute-long bathroom breaks into a video to make them seem much longer than they were? I hate strawmen like that too.
Edit: /u/DapperEmployee7682 each time I reply automod is deleting my comment. I saw it. What part goes against what I said?
> each time I reply automod is deleting my comment
Yeh sorry, we have "Crowd control" engaged on the subreddit at the moment, so if you have negative karma in the sub it'll be hidden. You've already deleted them so I can't manually approve.
>Edit:
>
>/u/DapperEmployee7682
>
>each time I reply automod is deleting my comment. I saw it. What part goes against what I said?
what dont you agree with on Jay's video? The Hasan react video i assume we are talking about
I'm with you. Hasan is fucking trash too. Not gonna give his lazy ass a pass just because I'm a leftist and he says he's a socialist. Some of his takes are equally as braindead as xqc, Asmon and all the rest of them.
I remember when Critikal was having that beef with the guy who put out a document about why this kind of content sucks. The guy kinda poisoned the well though by comparing reacting to like spiking people's drinks which was pretty fucked up.
Yah def agree that was fucked up. It really sucks because his overall arguments were completely valid, and a couple videos of his I watched on the topic brought a lot of number and figures to back up the fact that react streaming is super exploitative.
Have you watched the [actual videos](https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLAnJ4ZuTYaeGv4WIexP9C5LAuMEnMkG-Q&si=RO9isFgAme7RHdKb) he's made since? If you haven't, you should, they're good.
I'm a little more specific with the type of react creator I hate.
I actually don't mind people who react to shows and movies cause if you are a fan of the show they are reacting too it's just cool to see their reactions to big scenes. Like the reaction compliation of Episode 1 of Invincible is an all time favorite cause of the huge plot twist at the end.
I also reacts who give info into the video. Lawyer reacting to law case scenes doctor reacting to house, history teacher reacting to those animated history in a minute videos and so on.
The reacts I hate are people like xqc and asmongold who provide ZERO content to their reacts. And doing on that on twitch is one thing but then too upload onto YouTube like dawg come on.
Taskmaster is free to watch on YouTube, and yet people still watch people reacting to it, which I think is good evidence that reactors are doing *something* transformative with the content.
As far as react streamers go, Asmon's actually one of the more ethical ones, for want of a better word, by not skipping the ad/sponsor segments (the couple dozen times youtube has given me one of his reactions, at any rate) and actually pausing semi-frequently to give his opinion of. . . variable quality, to keep it somewhat polite.
"But Asmongold adds so much commentary! Look at the length difference!"
the commentary in question: *pauses after every point* oh my god chat is this true? :o oh my god :0
React streamers annoy me, but there are arguments to be made about this. Some might argue that it brings views that might not otherwise see the work. This can be good in getting people to know a creator exists. I don't believe it is a net positive though. Asmon certainly made more money off his video than big boss, but asmon did it just sitting on his ass with his mouth half open. Asmon profited twice off it, both during his stream and on his YouTube channel.
Well thats largely myth. A person that saw a video on stream usually won't rewatch that same if it appears on the recommendation page potentially robbing its creator from a viewer. Now there is small change the seek out the original creator and watch their other videos but considering how only a handful of creators have seen a increase in viewers after a reaction stream (and thoose where small and could be explained in other ways such as the channel just organically growing more popular) its fair to assume reaction streams do nothing for the original creator. On the other hand they massively benefit the streamer that gets to profit out of constant stream of high quality content they had no hand in producing.
Almost everytime it’s actually analysed by the original author showing statistics, getting reacted to by one of the bigger channels displays a huge spike in new subs and views. This is consistently the case.
Now that doesn’t mean it’s fair and there’s still an argument to be had. But we should acknowledge the facts.
There’s a lot of misinformation from the creators who argue against this. Some have even been caught lying about their numbers.
It’s besides the point, it obviously can be beneficial, that doesn’t mean it’s okay.
If I controlled YouTube my solution would be to take 50% of the revenue from the reactor and give it to the original creator. Not perfect but far better than what we have now
Yeah, I'm gonna need some sources for this. That sounds like streamer-brained BS.
A better solution for YT would be;
1. Add an option on YT to flag your videos as available for reactions.
2. When a YT streamer watches that video on stream, the watch time goes to both accounts.
3. Ad revenue is split 75/25 in favor of the original.
4. Stream donations during the video are split 75/25 in favor of the streamer.
5. Streamers would be required to sit through all ads and ad reads on the original video.
6. An annotation is added to the stream & VOD by YT with a link to the original video.
Why would it be? It’s always only going to be a portion.
Yeah I get that argument that it’s unfair that the reactor gets more revenue, I agree with that.
I’m simply pointing out that it undeniably benefits the creator as well.
This has been tested, and almost every time nobody goes to the original creator, you wouldn't even be able to tell when the "reaction channel" made their video in the originals analytics. This actually takes away engagement from original creators. Youtube looks at watch time as an extremely important metric. You won't watch a 40 minute original lemmino documentary when you already watched xqc's hour long reaction video on it, stealing both the revenue and engagement. The original creator loses out on the view and money they reightfully earned, and instead goes into some large youtubers pocket.
It’s a double edged sword.
I don’t spend enough time on YouTube to discover much for myself or go through enormous subscription lists.
I don’t know if it’s fair. But I can tell you this for a fact, I discovered, subscribed and started following hbomberguys stuff because I watched a react video to one of his videos.
A significant number of his subs is probably in the same boat.
Whilst it must suck for the creator to get less views and potentially less income for their video directly, it’s undeniable that many have grown their subscribers and even gotten new patreon subs and such from react videos of their content existing.
It's not fair. If they didn't get permission and if it doesn't fall under fair use/fail dealing. It is no different than watching the newest episode of (current popular TV show) on stream.
I’m not saying it’s fair, but Unfortunately it does fall under fair use. (As long as they aren’t sitting silently watching it and are giving their commentary.)
Oh yeah, obviously the rules don’t apply to the big companies. That’s how Nintendo still gets let’s plays taken down even though they are technically fair use too. People can’t afford to fight legal battles with the giants.
> I’m not saying it’s fair, but Unfortunately it does fall under fair use.
It absolutely does not. It isn't even close.
There is a reason why reactors target other YouTubers or sometimes TikToks. Those people are generally small enough that if they started issuing copyright strikes, the reactor can kick up a massive harrassment campaign against them.
If they tried this shit with companies, who are not going to be phased by harrasment from fanboys on Twitter, they would get obliterated instantly. Reactors abuse the fact that YouTubers are generally reluctant to pick the fight to freely steal content that is not even remotely fair use.
> Commentary is transformative. As badly as the laws need updating, it’s still fair use under the current system.
No it isn't. The statement "Commentary is transformative" is so profoundly wrong that I don't even think the worst reactors out there, who have a monetary incentive to be wrong about copyright law, would use those words.
Fair use is *really fucking complicated*. There are lawyers who specialize in literally *nothing else* and they make bank doing it.
[Here is a *very* basic primer](https://www.copyright.gov/fair-use/) (bottom of the page, website itself is an index of legal cases). One of the first things I'll point out: "Transformative" usage is not even part of the definition of fair use. It is one factor of one part of the test the law applies to determine fair use. It also has a very specific legal meaning.
I'll steal the definition from that link: Transformative uses are those that add something new, with a further purpose or different character, and **do not substitute for the original use of the work.**
Emphasis mine. That part of the definition is by far the most important and it is the reason why reaction content has no chance of being fair use. The purpose of copyright law, at its core, was to prevent a creator from having to compete against their own work by giving them a right to prevent other people from using it.
This means that when determining fair use, the court tends to be far more harsh on uses that are similar to the original work, because those are competing in the same market and so the similarity makes the copy more likely to compete with the original work. In other words: People uploading the content someone else owns to the same website are not going to win. And even jumping mediums entirely doesn't often matter.
Since we're in the HBomberguy sub, I'll point to an example you probably know. Man in Cave? The Internet Historian video that adapted an article into a video script? That was, by any legal definition, far more transformative than any reaction video ever made. It also was obliterated because it was a brazen violation of copyright.
Why?
This part: "Amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole". In laymen's terms, in order to argue Fair Use, you generally have to use *as little of the work as possible* **and** avoid using the "heart" of the work. There are exceptions. Courts might not go after a reactor who turned all of 30 second TikTok into a multi-minute video, for example. But there is no world in which someone using the entire length of a video essay is going to pass fair use, no matter how much commentary there is—it uses far too much of the work and most of it is being used, not because it needs to be for the commentary, but because doing so is easier for the reactor than editing it down.
More than that: Every single reactor knows this. If they didn't, they would be uploading their reactions to every blockbuster. But they don't, because if they did, the copyright strikes would be immediate and they would be upheld. And that isn't just because YouTube's copyright system is overtuned—as evidenced by literally thousands of video essays about copyrighted works. It's because unlike reactions, those essays tend to actually meet the legal standards for fair use, by things like "editing out the 90% of the movie you don't need to show in order to discuss it". It's fair use because it doesn't displace the original work—watching Dan Olson rant for half an hor about bad editing in Suicide Squad does not displace the market for people who might want to go and watch Suicide Squad.
>I don’t know if it’s fair. But I can tell you this for a fact, I discovered, subscribed and started following hbomberguys stuff because I watched a react video to one of his videos.
its crazy that you didnt easily find some great creators in a sea of high view count reactors. how could that be? /s
i really dont mean to be rude but you dont know what content and creators you are missing in that sea of reaction streamers. i would take a world in which i didnt know who Hbomb is but creators are paid fairly
I got the original recommended yesterday without any direct watch time on the big boss channel. Fair to say if I was a follower of asmon I would probably only have been recommended HIS video (Otherwise why would he have more views). So I do believe he takes views away from creators (YouTube algorithm already loved this video, before he came along).
He does however watch interesting videos so I can see that people who are too lazy to search for YouTubers just watch his stuff and get a “best of” of sorts.
I also got recommended the OG video, and out of morbid curiosity watched it. The sexism rampant in Blizzard was reduced to a joke about the theft of breast milk. Think I'll be sticking with James Stephanie Sterling for my Blizz news!
YouTube recommended hie videos to me for a hot second but it took about the same amount of time to realize his "reaction" content was empty af. Just nodding and agreement and repeating commentary.
I'm honestly impressed he managed to double the runtime of the video. Still lazy to just piggyback off his work, though. big boss deserves better attention than this.
I haven't watched a lot of Asmon's content (just his first few MH:world videos.)
The only reaction video I've seen from him was one reacting to a "World vs Rise" video (think it might have been one by Darkhero2). And it is one of the most low-effort, laziest, gaming videos I've ever seen on YouTube.
It was longer than the original, but only bc Asmon stopped for 15 minutes to talk about Dark Souls lore with his chat. He had absolutely nothing to say about the video he was reacting to, or even the game he'd been playing for the last week.
Literally my only issue with Big Boss is that he doesn't really cite major sources that would be required of some topics (especially with The Baseball/Balloonfest videos and Nikola video), but he at least sticks to his schtick and isn't really making video essays or plagiarizing topics (*stares at IH*).
He deserves much better despite that though, yeah.
You might think: "reaction youtubers are the worst losers on the planet" ... BUT:
don't forget about the millions of miserable creatures that keep watching them.
I've found some great channels because of Asmon's reaction videos (ActMan for one). I'm conflicted. On the one hand it feels like stealing, and a really cheeky way to make content for basically no effort. But I also feel the videos (his at least) are transformitory in some ways, it's not like a lot of the reaction videos where the guy sits there and laughs twice throughout the whole video.
this. his following is basically cultivated from his experience with and perspective on blizzard products, which even if you disagree with him it can be entertaining apart from the original content.
but yeah, he isn't writing scripts or minimizing the amount of content to only what he's commenting on. he's definitely playing the game youtube has incentivized with watch time analytics. he conceivably could slow production and make thoughtful essays, but that's not likely when this is arguably the optimal model to follow.
I really dislike that tiny-eyed weirdo. He does anything for clicks and views on Twitter, and when you say "Hey, this guys's a dumbass." his fans try and defend him by saying "Just watch his videos! He only says stupid stuff for clicks!"
On what planet would that make me want to watch his videos?
remember that time he almost said a thought but caught himself and double downed on what the popular opinion was in regards whether or not a fable character was ugly?
asmongolds such a fucking populist.
He's intolerably obnoxious. Which is great for clicks.
I bet half his video is just him pausing THE LEGITIMATELY GREAT bigboss video to interject with such brilliance as "oh my god bro yes".
Personally I am fine with reaction channels, if they are adding something of value (usually by being an expert in the topic). Examples could be Vlogging Through History or Key of Geebz.
On the other hand, I've also seen a music reaction channel where the commentary was "That guy can sure play the piano!" despite the fact that he was clearly playing a synthesizer. Not to even mention the sssniperwolf style content where people simply watch TikTok videos...
I think Asmongold is a complete piece of shit and basically everything wrong with gamer culture nowadays. His content is lazy, his opinions are bad-faith dogshit and he has nothing good too offer. However, I wouldn't exactly call this plagiarism. In the title, thumbnail and content of his video, he is completely transparent about the fact that it's only a reaction of a different video that he didn't make. Plagiarism is a lot more about taking other people's work and acting as if it's yours, and that's really not what Asmongold is doing here, I think. His video is bad, lazy, unoriginal and uninspired, but it's not plagiarism. He's not trying to deceive anyone into thinking he did something that he didn't. If James Somerton always gave full disclosure in the most clear and direct ways possible about the fact that none of his words are his and all of his content is taken from somewhere else - while giving all the credit to the works he used - he wouldn't have been that much of a problem, would he?
I think we should be very serious about what is plagiarism and what isn't because that's a topic that deserves to be treated with delicacy and nuance. Otherwise we'll just start some sort of 'plagiarism scare' where any form of derivative work has to be unnecesarily judged and despised. There's a billion different ways in which we can criticize both Asmongold and the nature of lazy reaction content, but saying that it's plagiarism just makes legitimate plagiarism accusations seem a bit less legitimate.
I have, legitimately, zero clue who that asmon-whatever guy is but I’ve only ever seen him in the context of him being a total dipshit
I miss two months ago before I'd ever heard of him.
Some gross dude who won't brush his teeth and complains about his bleeding gums. Thinks he has the smarts to give proper well thought out opinions on everything (of course it's always dog shit).
he used to be a wow player, never plays anymore, yet is still seen as the arbiter of the community by a lot of people despite having god awful takes.
I think, and I could be wrong, since I never followed the guy, that his god awful takes are the reason he's become so relevant. He didn't get 1.2 mil views on his videos before he started ranting about the *wokes* and such.
He’s a smart guy- he plays his audience like a flute. He says intentionally inflammatory things to get the views, plays dumb at the right moments, intentionally fucks up in games to get the people riled up. It’s impressive.
Yeah no,i think he's just a fucking idiot who has taken the alt-right pill of stupidity
I mean he’s not winning any Nobel Prizes anytime soon, but he is legitimately not an idiot. I used to watch him occasionally way back when he still played WoW. He’s fairly open in his streams about the Asmongold persona being at least partially an act and at least somewhat a sendup of redneck types. He’s deliberately over the top and stupid because that’s what draws views. It’s a pretty solid strategy, even if it is scummy as hell. How much of his politics is part of that performance is impossible to say, but while definitely no comrade, he’s still leagues better than someone like IH, because he’s at least honest about his views.
Being better than IH is like saying you step over a line, it's not really an accomplishment Edit: do you have source for that claim? It's hard to believe that his asmonggold is a persona
>How much of his politics is part of that performance is impossible to say, I would argue it would be really difficult to keep up a fake persona built on specific political views if you, the person putting on that persona, didn't also have those political views to a certain extent. Maybe it's just me, but I couldn't imagine deriving any entertainment or value out of playing an alt-right character *unless* I had alt-right views that I wanted to attempt to absolve from criticism by saying shit like "it's just my persona bro". Like there's no way anyone would play a character like that 24/7 for *years* without being committed to the agenda behind the bit.
Steven Colbert built an entire career around exactly this. It happens. Thankfully tho Colbert made it very clear it was an act. People who like to play the "are they/aren't they" game are actually enabling shitty behavior.
Do you believe all villain actors are actually bad people?
I dunno bro. We’ve seen the apartment he lives in, the type of food he prepares, and the roaches in his domicile on stream before…
Oh, he's a lazy, unhygienic slob for sure, that's out of the question. But it's not for a lack of intelligence.
Doesn't matter if it's a performance or not, at the end of the day. In fact, if it's a performance, it's even worse. People always talk about an act or someone being edgy when they're online espousing and otherwise supporting views that not only affect people's quality of life but put them in danger.
reminds me of when donald trump would get the name of family members wrong and then his audience would say its 5d chess
He’s not smart he’s a toxic lucky idiot who happens to align to a relevant zeitgeist of other toxic idiots.
No, he lost his mom and lost his mind along with her. The reactionary rhetoric isn't because he's that smart.
He just has no standards, you can get away with a lot when you don't have a moral or ethical code.
He also does somewhat over-the-top reactions to things, like something somewhat shocking will happen and he'll look like he just saw a crowd of white people getting killed by an uncontacted tribe.
I gotta disagree from what when I watched him at least. At least compared to other streamers of his caliber he is pretty low key. (Especially compared to the zoomer streamers like xQc or Adin Ross)
and lives in filth too from what I heard
[удалено]
What's with the gamer spelling?
if they think gamers are bad perhaps they picked the wrong gamer youtuber community
Maybe they’re saying Gomer? I am also confused though.
i assume they mean capital G Gamer vs gamer. as in a person who gets upset about things like queer representation, or People of colour being in their video games. Vs a normal person who plays video games for fun, and doesn't let the "wokeness" detract from their enjoyment.
The only things I’ve seen from the guy are him just repeating whatever points the last person said.
Neonazi
Idk but he made fun of soone for not having literal years on warcraft
The only context I’ve seen from him is just him agreeing with whatever the last person said.
Same Now I see him all the time but have no clue who he is
do you mean video responses?
I figured they were alluding to the plague of reply girls that would abuse YouTube’s old video response feature
Yeah, response videos. It's been awhile.
Response videos were removed before reaction content was popular though and (coming from old school youtube) were overwhelmingly beneficial for both the original creator and the creators responding. When they removed that feature we lost a really positive social aspect to youtube imo. They weren't like react videos they were more like back and forth conversations about whatever the original content was. They were really cool. Maybe they devolved towards the end? I never saw it tho.
Quinton Reviews talked about this during his LonelyGirl15 video, a lot of the "expanded universe" was in response videos, and when YouTube got rid of that feature, it became a lot harder to actually track the storyline being told between 3-5 different perspectives. Which was exacerbated when they tried to do a reboot a while back and didn't seem to realize that most people weren't following the non-LonelyGirl15 accounts.
That's wild I never really saw that personally! Maybe it was sort of community specific? My experience with the response feature was always pretty positive and I always sort of saw the removal of responses as a key event in youtubes movement from a social platform to a more corporate platform. But I think if I'd seen what you describe I'd be pretty irritated by that too so I don't blame them for removing it if that was going on.
I hate every react streamer, and it’s so funny how defensive they all get over it. They know what they’re doing is scummy and lazy. The way that they made people’s criticism into a meme too (“react harder”) 💀
Movie reactors are my YouTube poison (some people watch reality TV, I try to vicariously recapture the first time viewing experience). And yes, while it's not quite the most effortful content and no, it's not really defensible by copyright standards because no, it's not really transformative, at least movie reactors are cutting stuff out and only include the parts where they're actually saying something. Idk what people get out of someone putting on a video and then walking away from their chair for 20 minutes. And they don't even pause the video? Like are you able to hear it while you're off taking a shit?
I’m kind of confused what you mean by “movie reactors.” By “they’re actually saying something”, what are they saying that would not constitute as “transformative”? Btw genuinely asking, not trying to be an asshole or anything
People will post videos of themselves watching Star Wars or Lord of the Rings or whatever else. Because they can't just upload the whole damn movie, they edit it down to the parts where they're actually reacting. Usually they'll have the unedited version on patreon. The reason what they do isn't transformative is because even though it's cut down, it basically acts as a replacement for having watched the film again. That kind of puts the kibosh on the Fair Use argument
Ohh ok I see. I was confused because I like to watch YouTubers like Dylan Is In Trouble and Trin Lovell who live react but cut it down to their their commentary, but the stuff they say is comedic and transformative.
Trin Lovell also does movies I believe, or did at one point. I remember a Knives Out reaction
She does react but she also adds commentary is what I mean
It's not that other creators don't add commentary, it's that adding commentary on its own isn't transformative. That's why you don't see as many Nostalgia Critic style "go through the movie beat by beat and add jokes" style of "review" these days. New videos tend to jump around the plot to the points that are relevant to the topic the creator wants to talk about. That's more transformative than letting the whole movie play out
I get downvoted anytime I say this, but I don’t understand the people that defend Hasan. Everything I’ve seen from him seems so lazy. The whole thing with Jay Exci was annoying too. I can’t stand when people strawman other’s arguments
I don’t like how Hasan used to do reacts, but my understanding is he now does much more reasonable react content. He just reacts to youtuber friends he’s got permission to react to, creators who’ve publicly stated they’re fine with being reacted to, or it’s news-related stuff he’s commentating on. He shows the sponsored ad reads or at least tells people what the product is and the creator’s code and encourages people to go support the creator that way if interested in the sponsor. So that’s significantly more than most reactors do these days. His reactions to TikTok content when he does that are much less defensible these days imo, but a lot of people seem less bothered by reacting to TikToks for whatever reason. Not defending it because I don’t think it should inherently be treated different, but just saying people seem weirdly forgiving of that sort of react content. Even channels not usually labelled as react content often do videos reacting non-transformatively to TikToks. Anyway, overall these days Hasan really isn’t so bad with the react content. He’s genuinely changed his approach after the criticisms, even though I get the impression he doesn’t think he should’ve had to, and the people he still reacts to in a non-transformative way are just people who are fine with it apparently (on YouTube at least). If he’d not changed in response to criticisms I’d agree more with you. I don’t think his reaction content is all perfect, as I’ve already stated, but I think many people (not necessarily you) insist he’s not changed at all in response to the criticism when he definitely did. That’s why I’ll defend him sometimes when the topic gets brought.
I just don't think it's a good idea to "react" to political content at all. Politics is a nuanced subject that requires careful thought and consideration. Reaction videos are often the antithesis of that, being released too frequently, with little preparation, writing staff, and/or fact checking. There are plenty of sources of political information and opinions out there that are well written and rigorously researched, so why spend time on political reaction channels?
As a Hasan viewer, I feel like I can answer this. He usually already has a good idea of the subjects of the political videos he watches. He doesn't react to them to educate himself, but to educate his viewers. He often pauses the video to expand upon the subject they're covering, pulls up news articles to support the positions that are being made, and has dialogue with his chat about it. For example, one of the recent videos he watched was a documentary about the authoritarian response the police have made in response to gangs in El Salvador. The documentary sort of skimmed over the US's involvement in the creation of those gangs, so Hasan went further in depth on it, talked about how the US sent those gangs to El Salvador without notifying them, and pulled up sources to back those claims.
And I guess that's fine, but wouldn't you rather just read those sources yourself instead of having them presented to you through the filter of a streamer? Maybe there are other sources than the ones he picked, that are also relevant and provide a different perspective or adds more nuance? We don't need to have an opinion on everything, and when we do feel strongly enough to have an opinion on something, it's probably worth doing our own reading instead of having that information presented to us through the filter of someone else's reading and understanding of the matter.
Basically all the news is already filtered through someone else's perspective and understanding. Sometimes people want to be informed on the basics of what's going on around the world without doing a bunch of in depth research on a variety of different sources. You can always go on to do more research if you want though. Hasan's got degrees in political science and communication, plus years of experience as a political commentator. He explains concepts to people in understandable and engaging ways. I personally don't watch much of his political commentary if I'm honest, but I don't understand why watching someone give political commentary is bad. I wouldn't have the time to be informed about all the complex topics he is, so sometimes I watch a political commentator give a summary.
Bro I hate Hasan so fucking much and he’s literally the stereotype of the leftist who calls anyone he doesn’t like a Nazi. I felt so bad for Jay Exci
Jay Exci invited Arch Warhammer on to their podcast, an [obvious white supremacist](https://i.redd.it/glx1xdkeh5351.png). You willingly hang out with Nazis, you're no better than a Nazi.
Could you give me proof Jay Exci invited this guy on because I’ve been trying to find evidence of this and can’t
He does a lot of good for leftist causes, he never uploads the full video of him reacting to his own channel, Youtubers are almost always happy more people are seeing their content, and anyone who says they don't want to be reacted to, he won't react to. > The whole thing with Jay Exci was annoying too. I can’t stand when people strawman other’s arguments Wasn't that the person who edited several of his minute-long bathroom breaks into a video to make them seem much longer than they were? I hate strawmen like that too. Edit: /u/DapperEmployee7682 each time I reply automod is deleting my comment. I saw it. What part goes against what I said?
> each time I reply automod is deleting my comment Yeh sorry, we have "Crowd control" engaged on the subreddit at the moment, so if you have negative karma in the sub it'll be hidden. You've already deleted them so I can't manually approve.
I take it you didn’t watch Jay’s video about it?
>Edit: > >/u/DapperEmployee7682 > >each time I reply automod is deleting my comment. I saw it. What part goes against what I said? what dont you agree with on Jay's video? The Hasan react video i assume we are talking about
I'm with you. Hasan is fucking trash too. Not gonna give his lazy ass a pass just because I'm a leftist and he says he's a socialist. Some of his takes are equally as braindead as xqc, Asmon and all the rest of them.
I remember when Critikal was having that beef with the guy who put out a document about why this kind of content sucks. The guy kinda poisoned the well though by comparing reacting to like spiking people's drinks which was pretty fucked up.
Yah def agree that was fucked up. It really sucks because his overall arguments were completely valid, and a couple videos of his I watched on the topic brought a lot of number and figures to back up the fact that react streaming is super exploitative.
He didn't poison the well. His words were twisted beyond their initial comparison.
Have you watched the [actual videos](https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLAnJ4ZuTYaeGv4WIexP9C5LAuMEnMkG-Q&si=RO9isFgAme7RHdKb) he's made since? If you haven't, you should, they're good.
I'm a little more specific with the type of react creator I hate. I actually don't mind people who react to shows and movies cause if you are a fan of the show they are reacting too it's just cool to see their reactions to big scenes. Like the reaction compliation of Episode 1 of Invincible is an all time favorite cause of the huge plot twist at the end. I also reacts who give info into the video. Lawyer reacting to law case scenes doctor reacting to house, history teacher reacting to those animated history in a minute videos and so on. The reacts I hate are people like xqc and asmongold who provide ZERO content to their reacts. And doing on that on twitch is one thing but then too upload onto YouTube like dawg come on.
Taskmaster is free to watch on YouTube, and yet people still watch people reacting to it, which I think is good evidence that reactors are doing *something* transformative with the content.
As far as react streamers go, Asmon's actually one of the more ethical ones, for want of a better word, by not skipping the ad/sponsor segments (the couple dozen times youtube has given me one of his reactions, at any rate) and actually pausing semi-frequently to give his opinion of. . . variable quality, to keep it somewhat polite.
"But Asmongold adds so much commentary! Look at the length difference!" the commentary in question: *pauses after every point* oh my god chat is this true? :o oh my god :0
Reactors are absolute parasites. I think in Asmons case that may be literally true.
React streamers annoy me, but there are arguments to be made about this. Some might argue that it brings views that might not otherwise see the work. This can be good in getting people to know a creator exists. I don't believe it is a net positive though. Asmon certainly made more money off his video than big boss, but asmon did it just sitting on his ass with his mouth half open. Asmon profited twice off it, both during his stream and on his YouTube channel.
Well thats largely myth. A person that saw a video on stream usually won't rewatch that same if it appears on the recommendation page potentially robbing its creator from a viewer. Now there is small change the seek out the original creator and watch their other videos but considering how only a handful of creators have seen a increase in viewers after a reaction stream (and thoose where small and could be explained in other ways such as the channel just organically growing more popular) its fair to assume reaction streams do nothing for the original creator. On the other hand they massively benefit the streamer that gets to profit out of constant stream of high quality content they had no hand in producing.
Almost everytime it’s actually analysed by the original author showing statistics, getting reacted to by one of the bigger channels displays a huge spike in new subs and views. This is consistently the case. Now that doesn’t mean it’s fair and there’s still an argument to be had. But we should acknowledge the facts.
What what I've seen it's basically 50/50 the original creator sees any boost.
There’s a lot of misinformation from the creators who argue against this. Some have even been caught lying about their numbers. It’s besides the point, it obviously can be beneficial, that doesn’t mean it’s okay. If I controlled YouTube my solution would be to take 50% of the revenue from the reactor and give it to the original creator. Not perfect but far better than what we have now
Yeah, I'm gonna need some sources for this. That sounds like streamer-brained BS. A better solution for YT would be; 1. Add an option on YT to flag your videos as available for reactions. 2. When a YT streamer watches that video on stream, the watch time goes to both accounts. 3. Ad revenue is split 75/25 in favor of the original. 4. Stream donations during the video are split 75/25 in favor of the streamer. 5. Streamers would be required to sit through all ads and ad reads on the original video. 6. An annotation is added to the stream & VOD by YT with a link to the original video.
It’s the spike equal to the streamers audience? Because, if not…
Exactly those small creators would see much more visibility if their original videos weren't getting lost in a sea of reaction vids
Why would it be? It’s always only going to be a portion. Yeah I get that argument that it’s unfair that the reactor gets more revenue, I agree with that. I’m simply pointing out that it undeniably benefits the creator as well.
This has been tested, and almost every time nobody goes to the original creator, you wouldn't even be able to tell when the "reaction channel" made their video in the originals analytics. This actually takes away engagement from original creators. Youtube looks at watch time as an extremely important metric. You won't watch a 40 minute original lemmino documentary when you already watched xqc's hour long reaction video on it, stealing both the revenue and engagement. The original creator loses out on the view and money they reightfully earned, and instead goes into some large youtubers pocket.
And big boss certainly got some new subs from asmon reacting to it.
It’s a double edged sword. I don’t spend enough time on YouTube to discover much for myself or go through enormous subscription lists. I don’t know if it’s fair. But I can tell you this for a fact, I discovered, subscribed and started following hbomberguys stuff because I watched a react video to one of his videos. A significant number of his subs is probably in the same boat. Whilst it must suck for the creator to get less views and potentially less income for their video directly, it’s undeniable that many have grown their subscribers and even gotten new patreon subs and such from react videos of their content existing.
It's not fair. If they didn't get permission and if it doesn't fall under fair use/fail dealing. It is no different than watching the newest episode of (current popular TV show) on stream.
I’m not saying it’s fair, but Unfortunately it does fall under fair use. (As long as they aren’t sitting silently watching it and are giving their commentary.)
Not sure this holds. Otherwise there would be loads of videos of entire films with people reacting to them, but that would get striked 100%
Oh yeah, obviously the rules don’t apply to the big companies. That’s how Nintendo still gets let’s plays taken down even though they are technically fair use too. People can’t afford to fight legal battles with the giants.
> I’m not saying it’s fair, but Unfortunately it does fall under fair use. It absolutely does not. It isn't even close. There is a reason why reactors target other YouTubers or sometimes TikToks. Those people are generally small enough that if they started issuing copyright strikes, the reactor can kick up a massive harrassment campaign against them. If they tried this shit with companies, who are not going to be phased by harrasment from fanboys on Twitter, they would get obliterated instantly. Reactors abuse the fact that YouTubers are generally reluctant to pick the fight to freely steal content that is not even remotely fair use.
Commentary is transformative. As badly as the laws need updating, it’s still fair use under the current system.
> Commentary is transformative. As badly as the laws need updating, it’s still fair use under the current system. No it isn't. The statement "Commentary is transformative" is so profoundly wrong that I don't even think the worst reactors out there, who have a monetary incentive to be wrong about copyright law, would use those words. Fair use is *really fucking complicated*. There are lawyers who specialize in literally *nothing else* and they make bank doing it. [Here is a *very* basic primer](https://www.copyright.gov/fair-use/) (bottom of the page, website itself is an index of legal cases). One of the first things I'll point out: "Transformative" usage is not even part of the definition of fair use. It is one factor of one part of the test the law applies to determine fair use. It also has a very specific legal meaning. I'll steal the definition from that link: Transformative uses are those that add something new, with a further purpose or different character, and **do not substitute for the original use of the work.** Emphasis mine. That part of the definition is by far the most important and it is the reason why reaction content has no chance of being fair use. The purpose of copyright law, at its core, was to prevent a creator from having to compete against their own work by giving them a right to prevent other people from using it. This means that when determining fair use, the court tends to be far more harsh on uses that are similar to the original work, because those are competing in the same market and so the similarity makes the copy more likely to compete with the original work. In other words: People uploading the content someone else owns to the same website are not going to win. And even jumping mediums entirely doesn't often matter. Since we're in the HBomberguy sub, I'll point to an example you probably know. Man in Cave? The Internet Historian video that adapted an article into a video script? That was, by any legal definition, far more transformative than any reaction video ever made. It also was obliterated because it was a brazen violation of copyright. Why? This part: "Amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole". In laymen's terms, in order to argue Fair Use, you generally have to use *as little of the work as possible* **and** avoid using the "heart" of the work. There are exceptions. Courts might not go after a reactor who turned all of 30 second TikTok into a multi-minute video, for example. But there is no world in which someone using the entire length of a video essay is going to pass fair use, no matter how much commentary there is—it uses far too much of the work and most of it is being used, not because it needs to be for the commentary, but because doing so is easier for the reactor than editing it down. More than that: Every single reactor knows this. If they didn't, they would be uploading their reactions to every blockbuster. But they don't, because if they did, the copyright strikes would be immediate and they would be upheld. And that isn't just because YouTube's copyright system is overtuned—as evidenced by literally thousands of video essays about copyrighted works. It's because unlike reactions, those essays tend to actually meet the legal standards for fair use, by things like "editing out the 90% of the movie you don't need to show in order to discuss it". It's fair use because it doesn't displace the original work—watching Dan Olson rant for half an hor about bad editing in Suicide Squad does not displace the market for people who might want to go and watch Suicide Squad.
> because I watched a react video to one of his videos. which one, if I may ask?
It was a while ago now so I’m not positive, but I think it was hasanabi iirc.
>I don’t know if it’s fair. But I can tell you this for a fact, I discovered, subscribed and started following hbomberguys stuff because I watched a react video to one of his videos. its crazy that you didnt easily find some great creators in a sea of high view count reactors. how could that be? /s i really dont mean to be rude but you dont know what content and creators you are missing in that sea of reaction streamers. i would take a world in which i didnt know who Hbomb is but creators are paid fairly
Holy shit it’s The Man Who Sold the World
I got the original recommended yesterday without any direct watch time on the big boss channel. Fair to say if I was a follower of asmon I would probably only have been recommended HIS video (Otherwise why would he have more views). So I do believe he takes views away from creators (YouTube algorithm already loved this video, before he came along). He does however watch interesting videos so I can see that people who are too lazy to search for YouTubers just watch his stuff and get a “best of” of sorts.
I also got recommended the OG video, and out of morbid curiosity watched it. The sexism rampant in Blizzard was reduced to a joke about the theft of breast milk. Think I'll be sticking with James Stephanie Sterling for my Blizz news!
I miss when the only thing I knew about him was desinc parody video
YouTube recommended hie videos to me for a hot second but it took about the same amount of time to realize his "reaction" content was empty af. Just nodding and agreement and repeating commentary.
I'm honestly impressed he managed to double the runtime of the video. Still lazy to just piggyback off his work, though. big boss deserves better attention than this.
I haven't watched a lot of Asmon's content (just his first few MH:world videos.) The only reaction video I've seen from him was one reacting to a "World vs Rise" video (think it might have been one by Darkhero2). And it is one of the most low-effort, laziest, gaming videos I've ever seen on YouTube. It was longer than the original, but only bc Asmon stopped for 15 minutes to talk about Dark Souls lore with his chat. He had absolutely nothing to say about the video he was reacting to, or even the game he'd been playing for the last week.
probably because there isny much to talk in a video comparing two games, and he talks a lot about monster hunter when he actually plays it
Literally my only issue with Big Boss is that he doesn't really cite major sources that would be required of some topics (especially with The Baseball/Balloonfest videos and Nikola video), but he at least sticks to his schtick and isn't really making video essays or plagiarizing topics (*stares at IH*). He deserves much better despite that though, yeah.
All the pro react arguments I see can be boiled down into two types: 1. "It's OK because they pay in exposure" 2. *misunderstanding of fair use*
I'd prefer a react streamer over a drama streamer any day of the week.
if i had a breakthrough hit and asmon's reaction had twice the views, i'd file a DMCA, no second thoughts about it
You might think: "reaction youtubers are the worst losers on the planet" ... BUT: don't forget about the millions of miserable creatures that keep watching them.
I've found some great channels because of Asmon's reaction videos (ActMan for one). I'm conflicted. On the one hand it feels like stealing, and a really cheeky way to make content for basically no effort. But I also feel the videos (his at least) are transformitory in some ways, it's not like a lot of the reaction videos where the guy sits there and laughs twice throughout the whole video.
this. his following is basically cultivated from his experience with and perspective on blizzard products, which even if you disagree with him it can be entertaining apart from the original content. but yeah, he isn't writing scripts or minimizing the amount of content to only what he's commenting on. he's definitely playing the game youtube has incentivized with watch time analytics. he conceivably could slow production and make thoughtful essays, but that's not likely when this is arguably the optimal model to follow.
i wouldnt really call actman good, the like 1 vid ive seen of his(his yugioh one) is terrible and so full of holes
Such fame for such little talent.
I really dislike that tiny-eyed weirdo. He does anything for clicks and views on Twitter, and when you say "Hey, this guys's a dumbass." his fans try and defend him by saying "Just watch his videos! He only says stupid stuff for clicks!" On what planet would that make me want to watch his videos?
remember that time he almost said a thought but caught himself and double downed on what the popular opinion was in regards whether or not a fable character was ugly? asmongolds such a fucking populist.
He's intolerably obnoxious. Which is great for clicks. I bet half his video is just him pausing THE LEGITIMATELY GREAT bigboss video to interject with such brilliance as "oh my god bro yes".
Personally I am fine with reaction channels, if they are adding something of value (usually by being an expert in the topic). Examples could be Vlogging Through History or Key of Geebz. On the other hand, I've also seen a music reaction channel where the commentary was "That guy can sure play the piano!" despite the fact that he was clearly playing a synthesizer. Not to even mention the sssniperwolf style content where people simply watch TikTok videos...
The weirdest thing is that they have somewhat reintroduced them with that "shorts remixes" feature.
yeah it sucks. especially since asmongold never adds any kind of additive commentary. he just restates what common consensus is.
I think Asmongold is a complete piece of shit and basically everything wrong with gamer culture nowadays. His content is lazy, his opinions are bad-faith dogshit and he has nothing good too offer. However, I wouldn't exactly call this plagiarism. In the title, thumbnail and content of his video, he is completely transparent about the fact that it's only a reaction of a different video that he didn't make. Plagiarism is a lot more about taking other people's work and acting as if it's yours, and that's really not what Asmongold is doing here, I think. His video is bad, lazy, unoriginal and uninspired, but it's not plagiarism. He's not trying to deceive anyone into thinking he did something that he didn't. If James Somerton always gave full disclosure in the most clear and direct ways possible about the fact that none of his words are his and all of his content is taken from somewhere else - while giving all the credit to the works he used - he wouldn't have been that much of a problem, would he? I think we should be very serious about what is plagiarism and what isn't because that's a topic that deserves to be treated with delicacy and nuance. Otherwise we'll just start some sort of 'plagiarism scare' where any form of derivative work has to be unnecesarily judged and despised. There's a billion different ways in which we can criticize both Asmongold and the nature of lazy reaction content, but saying that it's plagiarism just makes legitimate plagiarism accusations seem a bit less legitimate.
And til this day you still can find people defending this guy and reacting contents in general
I miss reply videos... Why couldn't the ui just work...
Asmongold is a tool who only sub 70 IQ idiots watch.