Can YouTube Help Save Democracy?

Reaction Videos Help Some Explore Music. How About History and Government?

If you wander around YouTube long enough you will eventually find something groovy. I recently discovered a genre that goes by the generic name “Reaction.” It’s not new, but as a pop culture ignoramus, it’s new to me. And it gives me hope and makes me smile. First the smile, and then we’ll talk about hope.

Reaction works like this. Millennial YouTubers listen to music of all eras, especially music that boomers know, but which they are hearing for the first time. Then they react in real time, often stopping mid-track to tell you what they’re thinking or feeling.

Some of these “Reactioners” (Reactionaries?) are simply amateur audiophiles having fun and hoping to make some money in an almost cost-free business where someone else created the product decades ago. A few seem to be starring in their own sophomoric, low-budget, reality TV shows.

Yet some are knowledgeable people with a music education. The Australian musician Cazza has a separate Reaction channel, callmecaroline, where she will walk you through every song of every Beatles album, teach you the chord changes, and to recognize the French horn in Sargent Pepper’s Lonely Heart Club Band. Beth (YouTube channel Beth Roars) is a professional voice coach who tells you why Bob Dylan and Neil Young have great voices. Who knew?

Still others are just smart people who are passionate about music and can speak to it with intelligence and a decent stage presence. Sebs Duran says he’s played guitar since he was eight and was awed by Dire Straits’ Sultans of Swing, discovering why Mark Knopfler may be the world’s greatest guitarist. Sarah Dengler and Inna (innasolomusic) listen to “Hey Jude” and “Let It Be” while sharing two of the world’s great smiles.

The pleasure comes from seeing their pleasure in discovering what Boomers have always known, that we grew up with great music differentiated from theirs by actual melody. There is a sense of connection, especially with the otherwise alien Gen Z. By reputation they’re a brittle group with little knowledge or interest in American history or civics, but they’re strong in video gaming. That may be an unfair stereotype, but to the extent it is true you can’t blame them. Somebody decided to teach them something else, instead.

But as I said, Reaction gives us hope as well was pleasure. Hope that you can teach someone something in fifteen minutes we would like for them to know before they are responsible for leading this country.

For example, that a World War fought eighty years ago is not an irrelevant artifact but in fact formed the world we live in today. That the Cold War was real and dangerous, fought over three generations by seven Presidents. That our greatest error was an ill-advised war in Southeast Asia that cost fifty-eight thousand American lives, prosecuted by a possibly great President who was told in advance we couldn’t win. That he was followed by another who fell from grace when he covered up a foolish burglary that his own staff called third rate. That our greatest moral failure was the oppression and humiliation of one eighth of the population because of their skin color.

We’d also want them to know that we live, still, in the greatest nation ever conceived, and as Ronald Reagan believed, if you were born in America you hit the jackpot. That a President would make a bet we would win, when two brave men landed on the moon and then came back alive. That our racial divide has been narrowed if not eradicated. That thanks to laws enacted fifty years ago our water and air are cleaner than at any time since the industrial revolution. That we are safer and live longer than any prior generation. That the politics of extreme, vindictive and cruel partisanship is not and doesn’t have to be normal.

You could make a long list of should-know history and civics. Can Reaction be a means to that end? It would be exciting to try. Reaction seems to satisfy some requisites for Millennial communications. It’s entertaining, spontaneous, brief and interactive. It does give one hope.

Post submitted by Frank Schneider
Frank is a volunteer with The Union. Frank enjoyed a career in tech marketing and sales before starting Fact Based Media, a “tiny communications company with big ideas for preserving American democracy.” He is a native Minnesotan, has degrees from the University of St. Thomas and University of Minnesota, and loved Hubert Humphrey. He now lives in Kansas City, but still follows the Twins.

Note: The views and opinions expressed by volunteer contributors are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the positions of The Union, a single-issue organization that welcomes all and is dedicated to protecting democracy.

If you’d like to help defend democracy in the US, we invite you to join The Union.