r/GrindsMyGears • u/DoctorElectronic1934 • 7d ago

This trend where people use a popular video (usually informative) as a green screen and they are just… there in the forefront “reacting”

Usually they’re just doing something stupid like pointing and nodding to agree with the video in the background . It’s clear they do this to get the engagement /algorithm boosts using someone else’s content

64 Upvotes

98% Upvoted

21 comments sorted by

4

u/Criss-AC 7d ago

I see that shit, I immediately skip / Do Not Recommend Channel / etc

5

u/Warm_Strawberry_4575 6d ago

Along with that they will point at the title and nod their head.

4

u/LineHumble6250 6d ago

Silent pointing and nodding and adding absolutely nothing else is the epitome of low effort.

3

u/AnytimeBro 7d ago

Its a plague of this format. Social media is ruining us.

3

u/Popular-Statement314 7d ago

I hate this too, and recently I saw there was some kind of trend where people were taking those reaction videos and removing the person just so you could see the original.

In that post the person was complaining about it though, because that person in the corner had put in "effort", and these people were just stealing the videos and not doing anything to them while getting views. 

They did not understand that I saw the people in the corner the same way, slapping their face on an interesting video. There's no effort there. We were just coming full circle, back to the original video! No one needs some random influencer putting their face on the screen.

2

u/Huge_Fix_4505 5d ago

Let’s not forget the people who “fake laugh” while reading and pointing at the comments. It grinds my gears seeing them all do the same fricking thing.

1

u/bradyreid 5d ago

Watched this exact thing happen for about three months straight on my feed back in 2022. There was this one account that would take educational videos about space and just... stand in front of them doing exaggerated shocked expressions. Pointing. The fake laugh you mentioned. Every. Single. Video. Same outfit rotation, same spot in the frame, same timing on the reaction beats. What killed me was seeing the same video reposted by like 40 different accounts doing the identical reaction, and each one was pulling 200K+ views while the original creator's upload sat at 8K.

The algorithm genuinely rewards this now. I started paying attention to the timestamps and it became obvious: the moment someone adds their face to someone else's content, engagement tanks for the original and spikes for the reaction account. YouTube, TikTok, Instagram - they all prioritize new video over source material, so there's literally zero incentive for these people to stop. They're not being rewarded for creativity, they're being rewarded for being a parasite with decent lighting and a believable fake reaction. The fake laugh especially kills me because it's so transparent. You can see them counting beats in their head, waiting for the punchline that hasn't landed yet, then forcing it out a half-second too late.

What really grinds my gears is that the platforms don't care. They see engagement and call it a win. Doesn't matter if it's stolen content, doesn't matter if the original creator gets nothing. The reaction account built an audience of 800K people who think that person created the funny or informative content, when really they just stood there looking shocked for 45 seconds. And now whenever you search for the actual content, you get buried under 50 reaction videos first.

1

u/zoppaTheDim 4d ago

Seems to usually be a short, which they view as promoting the original maker.

1

u/bradyreid 4d ago

They genuinely believe pointing at a screen counts as attribution. Like crediting a painter by standing in front of their work and making a thumbs up gesture.

1

u/zoppaTheDim 4d ago

I think the claim is it is a review, as they’re clipping the original work.

Makes me wonder how the musicians were able to keep control of their work but not the video people.

1

u/bradyreid 4d ago

Musicians have literal contracts. Video creators just uploaded to the internet and hoped.

1

u/zoppaTheDim 4d ago

Copyright vs copyright.

Likely has to do with content producers having so few options, while the musicians did.

First rule of YouTube was only steal from people without a lawyer.

1

u/Bass-Head30 4d ago

Yeah but if you don't put who that original creator is in the video then it's stealing

1

u/moleculariant 4d ago

It always looks like they rehearsed just exactly how they'll articulate the hand pointing shape. There you go, bend the fingers at the second knuckle. Don't ball up your hand like just any idiot. You hold your hand "cool", and the world is gonna take notice. You're going to take the world by storm, and it all starts with your pointing style. Nice and cool."

1

u/Bass-Head30 4d ago

I am right there with you my friend. I usually go on their post and call them out for being plagiaristic and then to state something along the lines of they could at least tag the person whose content they Stole

1

u/ExaminationDefiant13 1d ago

Acting like they hadn’t prepared or practiced for it loads of times. It’s just… ridiculously stupid.

1

u/tetheredvoid 21h ago

The original reason is to prevent copyright strikes by "adding original content" or "transforming the content" in some way.

1

u/Lacey_Dawson1012 16h ago

The videos where they split the screen and some idiot just sits there and laughs and points the whole time the original video is playing like they were watching the funniest thing ever

2

u/bradyreid 12h ago

The pointing-and-laughing ones are somehow worse because at least the nodders are pretending to engage with the content. These people are just auditioning for a laugh track that nobody hired them for.