As is probably true for most Internet surfers, I sometimes go “on safari” on the Web, letting my nose and the various algorithms take me where they will. Sometimes, those safaris do nothing more than kill time. Other times, though, I intersect something very satisfying.

Had me one of the latter the other day.

It was not that long ago that I challenged the notion that technology was going to permanently destroy jobs, and create massive permanent unemployment that would need to be remediated by a Universal Basic Income of some sort. Such predictions have been around since the earliest days of the Industrial Revolution, and they’ve been as wrong as the repeated Malthusian warnings about overpopulation and resource depletion. That is to say, completely.

New forms of wealth creation emerge all the time, and in that last go-round I offered up the monetization of “reactions” enabled by platforms like YouTube. For the uninitiated, there are countless people who make videos of themselves watching or listening to a song, a video, a show, or whatever, many with commentary. Some are experts in a particular area, such as guitar or voice-coaching, and they’ll admire, criticize, explain, deconstruct, and inform. These would be known as “teachers” in other forums.

However, not all reactors are teachers. Some are just people of no special expertise or knowledge offering reactions (whether genuine or staged) to what they’ve chosen to watch or listen to. The good ones, teachers or no, can rack up millions of Youtube hits, which puts them into a position of making significant income. But, I’ve already covered this economics angle.

The thing that I and (going by comments on those videos) many others relish are the genuine “first reactions” to songs that we know and love. Music exists in every culture for a reason – we are obviously wired to enjoy it. I consider myself fortunate to be among the two-thirds of the population that gets “skingasms” (aka goosebumps, aka chills, aka frisson) from music, and there are songs I’ve heard hundreds of times that still raise the hairs on my arms.

Therein lies the real treat in these reaction videos: the witnessing of someone experiencing something you love for the first time.

We are incapable of wiping our memories of those songs we love, so as to hear them for the first time and re-live moments of glorious discovery, but we can do so vicariously, by watching someone else have “aha” moments. And, when it comes to those song we know so well, we can literally count the seconds until the “aha” happens. It’s like watching a pitcher face a batter in a playoff game, late innings, tie score, man on second, two outs. Each pitch is an intensely concentrated moment of anticipation, and when the big hit happens, or when the big strikeout happens, along comes that surge of endorphin that reminds us we are alive. As I watch “professional opera singer” Elizabeth Zharoff react to Pantera’s Cemetery Gates, I know what she doesn’t: that Phil Anselmo will belt out an impossibly high note (G#5, according to the Internet) near the end of the song, and it’ll be mirrored by the late, great Dimebag Darrell Abbott on his guitar. Will the reaction, by a voice professional, bring me back to the first time I heard it?

Sometimes yes, sometimes no. The “nos” may guide my future surfing – if you don’t like what I like, there may be fewer of these “revelations by proxy” in any shared future we have. But, when someone shows that moment of wonder that I had so many years ago? It’s absolutely delicious.

• About the Author

About Peter Venetoklis

I am twice-retired, a former rocket engineer and a former small business owner. At the very least, it makes for interesting party conversation. I'm also a life-long libertarian, I engage in an expanse of entertainments, and I squabble for sport.

Nowadays, I spend a good bit of my time arguing politics and editing this website.

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