Auctioneers
In the current issue of the New York Times Magazine Reyhan Harmanci looks at some of the reaction videos that circulated in the wake of the Uvalde school shooting to explore what it means "When Raw Emotion Goes Viral," as the title of the piece announces. That headline captures, probably inadvertently, a central contradiction of reaction videos: They purport to be "raw" (immediate, unrestrained, "natural") when they are simultaneously calculated and tactical, made to thrive in an environment of algorithms and attention metrics.
As Harmanci explains, the videos recirculate because they have the "capacity to reflect raw emotion" (emphasis added), which means that they are not direct expressions of such emotion. They signify the emotion, they represent it, they reifiy it, they make it exchangeable and give it a negotiable value. The emotion itself is no longer raw; instead "rawness" has become a media effect, an aspect of the commodity on display. Describing one reaction video made by Marine Corps veteran Matthew Gordon, Harmanci notes that the "delivery and straight-to-camera gaze had all the hallmarks of a social media influencer; with the sound off, he could be pitching a product."
At the level of their specific content, reaction videos are meant to sell viewers on what they should be feeling, or reassure those viewers that their feelings are within the correct parameters for their particular affective community. "Some of us require assurance that we are not alone in our outrage or pain or confusion as digital bystanders," Harmanci suggests. The videos may also work as a vicarious conduit of emotion, doing the feeling for us. In that sense, they serve as designated mourners. "Processing" emotion (to put it in Gordon's terms) can be a parasocial activity.
But as Harmanci's example suggests, reaction videos also inculcate the link between having a feeling and making a pitch. When I feel something, it is not an inward reflection of my inner state but an outward appeal to another party, a proposition, an offer awaiting acceptance or at least a counteroffer. Moreover, I know I am really feeling something only when I am conscious of myself trying to close the sale. Other levels of feeling, ones that aren't mediated, that aren't articulate or persuasive, are correspondingly derealized.
Since the advent of social media, real-time platforms have become the main place where "reactions" happen, to the degree where I sometimes feel obliged to check the feeds in order to react, to enter the space where reactions are registered, where they seem to have stakes. In response to the U.S. Supreme Court's despicable ruling on abortion rights, my Twitter feed was suffused with the anticipated reactions of outrage, fear, despair, pragmatism, cynicism, recrimination, as well as calls to donate to abortion funds and attend protests and get off of Twitter and do something. There were some meta-reactions about how "we" should or shouldn't feel. Even the posts that weren't about the ruling seemed like veiled reactions in the form of an absence. On days like this, all content is reaction content, which can compound the sense of oppression.
As many critics have long pointed out, tech companies — with ad tech at the forefront — have built up "the infrastructure of authoritarianism," making surveillance ubiquitous and inescapable: "too cheap to meter" as this ACM piece puts it. This problem becomes especially acute when the state scales back what few privacy rights do exist and begins criminalizing more everyday behavior. The political will necessary to dismantle that infrastructure has itself been apparently dismantled by it. Individuals are expected to fend for themselves, download new technologies to protect themselves from the other technologies, as if these alone were the problem.
The incitement and codification of reactions, even negative reactions, is part of that authoritarian infrastructure too. It seems to suggest concessions made in advance about where and when feelings will be experienced, with the understanding that surveillance is required to activate them. It seems to put all the emotions up for sale, especially my own. As I skim through my feed, processing, so many auctions begin.