Eric Cabillot

The Ethics of

Reaction Content

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I want to ask the question:

is it possible to make ethical reaction content?

I’d argue that the answer is yes, but first we have to define the genre.

What is “reaction content”?

Reaction content refers to content, either prerecorded or live, that consists of an individual reacting to a piece of media. It’s a very simple concept with a low barrier to entry for creators, which makes it a very popular format.

The basic concept of a reaction video is defined by these conventions:

  1. A piece of original media (often one that’s already popular or gaining popularity)
  2. A content creator who records/streams their reaction to the media
  3. The video edited in a way where the media takes up most of the screen and the content creator’s camera is visible in a smaller window, usually in one of the corners of the frame.

What’s unethical about this though?

Reaction content is almost always based on using other people’s work without permission.

When reacting to content either in a video or on stream, a content creator appropriates that content for their own channel, and for their own monetary gain. A large creator can earn thousands of dollars for simply taking someone else’s content, recording their own viewing of it, and uploading it to their own channel.

Artifact #1

This is one of Twitch’s most subscribed streamers xQc.

xQc, aka Felix, streams for many hours every day, much of which is his reactions to videos.


This video is a particularly damning example of a bad reaction video. In this 1h and 53m video, Felix watches a video by YouTuber Lemmino, in it’s entirety, with very little commentary or even pausing the video.

Lemmino spent months working on his video, doing an in-depth deep dive into a major historical event. He created 3D graphics, composed background music, designed motion graphics, and edited the entire video over several months.

xQc watched Lemmino’s video for about two hours and uploaded the unedited stream clip.

Artifact #2

SSSniperwolf, or Lia, is a YouTuber that makes reactions to TikTok videos. Like xQc, she barely actually reacts to the videos, if at all, and even worse, doesn’t credit the creators of the videos she watches. She has been called out for this on many occasions by many different YouTubers, but her content style has not changed.

This is a recent sampling of the content that can be found on Lia’s channel. Every video goes past the ten minute mark to increase ad revenue gained from watchtime.

This is an example of the description of one of Lia’s videos. Not only does she have more than twenty videos by different creators that she uses without permission, but she doesn’t even leave the viewer with any way of finding those creators. Her descriptions only promote her other platforms with no mention of the content she reacts to.

How can reaction content be made ethically?

It’s actually really simple. A reaction creator would just have to reach out to the people who make the content they’re going to react to before making a video. Getting permission from the owner of the content used is crucial to ethical reaction content.