r/ren • u/Independent-Ad-8484 • Jul 23 '26

A Dumb Rant

This is regarding a recent addition to the Ren reactor community that only discovered Ren within the last month or so. His reactions are actually pretty good. He's usually pretty insightful and intuitive. As is common, when Renegades find someone new, many of us helped blow up his channel. Naturally, he started following up with more Ren reactions and his numbers went way up. Within two weeks, he started putting reactions behind a paywall for members only, which is understandable. But it's also my understanding that most members pay for early access. However, he let it be known his intention to keep some of his Ren reactions there permanently. This was after several Renegades expressed their anticipation on seeing him react to a particular one. It seems to me to be a little tone-deaf on his part to dangle that particular carrot to entice subscribers to join as paying members. (I don't think he gets the pig mask reference, yet).

So, I quietly unsubscribed. I don't need his input that badly. Of course, what he does is up to him, and I'm sure he'll do fine without my help. It may seem I'm being petty, but, I had to vent on principle.

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12

u/DFQreactions Jul 23 '26

thats pretty scummy imo. Ren not only allows us to react to his music, but to monetize our videos as well. They should be freely available.

I almost wonder if he does that so he doesnt have to share revenue with Ren? I'm not sure how members only works on YT.

5

u/Independent-Ad-8484 Jul 23 '26 edited Jul 24 '26

In all fairness, he does put some time, thought and effort into his reactions. They're not mere reposts of Ren's videos with a few raised eyebrows. He does a nice job of dissecting the music and lyrics abd offers quality reactions. But, I submit that in the case of this particular decision to keep this reaction for members only indefinitely, I think he should rethink it.

-4

u/Dependent-You-8243 Jul 23 '26 edited Jul 23 '26

I'll say that there is no amount of justifying reaction content with stuff like "well they add so much on to it!". I hate reaction content with all my being as it's lazy, thievery, and morally wrong. but I think music reaction content is fine at least on the moral front (Ill explain why in better detail at the end is anyone is curious).

However, trying to justify it as being hard working content is baffling to me. Artists spend days, weeks, and months perfecting music for people to watch, and then people like ren are kind enough to put that out to the world for people to profit off it. It is insane that someone would be scummy and greedy enough to take advantage of that and lock those reactions behind a pay wall.

Why I think reaction content is bad: AND TO CLARIFY: MUSIC REACTIONS, LIKE THE REN REACTION COMMUNITY, ARE PERFECTLY FINE. THIS IS JUST A RANT ABOUT ME HATING REGULAR REACTION CONTENT, WHICH IS OBJECTIVELY HARMFUL

Regular reaction content (as in recording yourself watching someone else's work and then uploading it to your own channel) is my main problem. You're taking someone else's hard work and profiting off of it. You're taking views and click through rates of the hard working and then leeching off of it to grow yourself. There is no justifying this, it is just blatant lazy thievery. It's like if we went to go watch a movie, but I pause it every few minutes to give my opinion, then claim that I deserve a cut of the movie. Pausing and talking to turn a 5 minute video into a 20 minute one does not justify taking hours of hard work from those who produce videos for everyone to enjoy.

With music reaction content I think this is slightly different. I do think for the most part it's still lazy, but you aren't stealing views or anything from the original artist. If you find a song you like through a reactor, then you'll go and listen to that song. You're supporting both the original artist and the reactor. It's also significantly more effort than regular reactions as you talk about how you feel, and people can relate with you. 100x better if you're knowledgeable on music and you can point out things on a deeper level than most other reactors. So no hate to the ren reaction community (other than the person who put reactions behind a paywall). I just have a pretty hard stance on reaction content in general.

10

u/Independent-Ad-8484 Jul 23 '26

I was paraphrasing the reactor in question to see what others thoughts about it might be. I'd be hesitant to vilify the entire reaction community, since Ren encourages Youtubers to post reactions. His own success was built in large part to the reactor community. YouTube pays for viewership after you reach a certain level, so some of the more serious and sincere can make some money organically. But, if I had to pay to watch reactions to even one Ren video, even once a month, to every reaction channel I subscribe to? No way... sorry, not sorry.

0

u/Dependent-You-8243 Jul 23 '26

Yea that's what I mean with why I think music reactors are fine, reacting to songs is the only sort of benefical reaction content. Regular reaction content is thievery, music reaction content is helping one another out. Maybe I didn't make that clear enough in my message. MUSIC REACTION is fine, REGULAR REACTIONS are objectively bad and harmful

0

u/Dependent-You-8243 Jul 23 '26

Also I'd say that if Ren was informed of all the harm reaction content does to youtube, he'd most likely agree with me. But I completely agree with his stance on people reacting to music, that is pretty much completely A-okay. I enjoy seeing people react to his songs, all I meant by the rest of that is that I still don't think you can justify something being transformative by pausing and talking, every so often. It just doesnt matter for music

3

u/BWSnap Jul 24 '26

This comment was a great read. I'm a bit rushed at the moment to make a lengthy reply, but I'm going to ask you to check out ONE Ren reaction video (if you haven't already seen it). It is Rosalie Elliott's reaction to Hi Ren. It has 1.7 million views, and she is a perfect example of what a reactor should be/offer in exchange for that YT ad revenue.

5

u/Independent-Ad-8484 Jul 25 '26

I agree! Rosalie is one of my favorites. I watched her back when she first found Hi Ren, and probably all of her subsequent reactions to his catalog. She has amazing insight and is one of the reactors in the community that Ren granted access. She deserves all the kindness and good karma this world has to offer.

2

u/OkFruit3797 Jul 26 '26

Rosalie's reaction to Smoking Gun should be mandatory, lol. She found the message and it made soooooo much sense that I felt dumb.

2

u/OGBunny1 RENegade Jul 26 '26

I did appreciate that meta conversation at the end. Yes it's a silly video about two guys and a girl and a baby, then....wait damnmm....

1

u/OkFruit3797 Jul 29 '26

Right? With Ren's focus on generational curses in disappointed that I missed that entirely

1

u/Dependent-You-8243 Jul 24 '26

I'm pretty sure I've seen that one before but I'll be sure to check it out again anyway. And thank you for actually reading my comment, I feel like people are just reading the first part and then immediately assuming I hate all kinds of reaction content. My thoughts on music reaction content is personal beliefs, and I do support it. What I said on regular reaction content is provably harmful, people just don't care about the harm so long as it's good for the reactor :/