I was like, ‘Well, why does it have to just be this one thing?’” For rap people, there was just rap, and there was rock, but I didn’t see a mixture of both. “People were staying in their comfort zones, says George Baker, one half of the team behind influential Las Vegas-based channel Lost in Vegas. “I was already a big fan of metal, and there weren’t a lot of people doing that.” “I realized there was a market for it,” says Mona Platt, who posts reactions at Pink Metal Head.
In an attempt to differentiate themselves from the larger economy of YouTuber reaction videos, where most users focused on current mainstream hits and one type of music, they zeroed in on less-traditional reaction-video source material: Nineties alternative, Seventies classic rock, Eighties hip-hop, or contemporary country. These days, dozens upon dozens of reaction videos spring up within days of a major pop song’s release.Ĭhannels like PinkMetalHead, Lost in Vegas, Jamel_AKA_Jamal, and Twins the New Trend launched around 20. YouTube music-reaction videos have sprung up in an environment where voyeuristic unboxing videos have long been one of the service’s most popular formats, TikTok reactions to up-and-coming pop singles have become one of the music industry’s primary marketing tools, and where platforms like Twitch feature millions of users watching strangers play video games for hours at a time. But i n reality, it was merely the first genuine moment of mainstream exposure for a rapidly growing subset of YouTube music-reaction videos that have proliferated during the past few years, in which mostly young, mostly black YouTubers react to a cross-genre mix of new and older music, with a particular focus on metal, country, and classic rock. The twins’ “In the Air Tonight” may have registered as a one-off moment of feel-good virality. In an interview two weeks after posting the video, the Williams brothers told Rolling Stone that they’ve already begun informal conversations with a major label and received sponsorship deals from clothing companies, corporate opportunities from Beats by Dre, and television pitches.
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