NuttyMadam is a young, self-professed Twilight fan. So excited is she about the the popular series that she tapes herself watching the film trailers as they are released and then publishes these videos on YouTube.
NuttyMadam’s videos are shot in extreme close up of her face and consist of a lot of swearing, screaming and high emotion. They are also very popular. Her reaction video for the latest film has been viewed more than 900 thousand times at the time of writing after being featured on Perez Hilton.
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| The story of Courtney Malt viewing Wall•E |
Another video maker, Courtney Mault, posted her reaction to the Wall•E teaser trailer when she realised it made her cry on cue. In a charming tale, Courtney blogs how exhausted Pixar employees found and used her video as motivation to complete the film and as thanks, flew her to the wrap party screening of the film.
The reaction video has a dark history of people either willingly watching or being set up to watch obscene or humorous videos and taping their reactions. The more extreme or funny the initial video, the bigger the reaction and the more entertaining the resulting reaction video (Tossell, 2008). For NuttyMadam and Courtney, they are conscious of their viewer and the genre of the reaction video in setting up the camera, constructing their image, editing the video and posting it online. In taking a private experience into a public forum, they break down the barrier between the spaces raising the question to what extent the reaction is genuine or performed (Lange, 2007).
If you can bear the noise (and language), the reaction video is an interesting genre to bring in to the class room to talk about performance of identity and fandom. Just imagine in an alternative universe a young David and Margaret starting out their reviewing career pointing webcams towards their faces as they sit down to watch film trailers.
References
Lange, P. G. (2007), Publicly Private and Privately Public: Social Networking on YouTube. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 13: 361–380. doi: 10.1111/j.1083-6101.2007.00400.x
Tossell, Ivor (2008, July 18). Every action's reaction, now online, The Globe and Mail,
Retrieved from http://www.theglobeandmail.com/
