Toxic Cooking Show
Misogyny, $800 first dates, simps, and high-value women: Social media has been busy cooking up and feeding us an addictive but toxic slurry of trends over the past few years. Here at The Toxic Cooking Show we're two friends dedicated to breaking down these trends, terms, and taunts into their simplest ingredients to understand where they came from and how they affect our lives. Join us each week as we ponder and discuss charged topics like personal responsibility and "not all men" before placing them on our magical Scale O' ToxicityAny comments or topics you want to hear about write to us at toxic@awesomelifeskills.com
Toxic Cooking Show
Reacting to Reaction Videos
One face in a box reacting to another face in a box shouldn’t feel dangerous. Yet the way reaction content spreads shapes what we see, what we believe, and how safe we feel in public. We dig into why this format is everywhere, how it amplifies fringe clips into cultural moments, and what happens when a small creator’s post is blasted to millions with zero context. The result isn’t just more noise; it’s a perception shift that makes isolated incidents look like widespread crises.
We unpack the misinformation machine behind reaction videos: staged skits that get stripped of parody labels, dramatized narratives glued together by guesswork, and “explainers” that confidently fill gaps with fiction. From viral cheating scandals to airport meltdowns, we show how false apology letters, spoofed insiders, and misread frames muddy the truth. Then we tackle the ugliest fallout—doxxing and misidentification—where commenters expose names, workplaces, and families, and innocent people get caught in the crossfire. When the internet decides someone is guilty, the corrections rarely catch up.
There’s a better path. We highlight reaction creators who actually add value: music teachers breaking down vocal technique, scientists debunking ghost videos, and experts critiquing large, public channels instead of mocking private individuals. The difference is rigor and responsibility—verify sources, add knowledge, and avoid punching down. We also zoom out to the culture-wide cost: how normalizing constant filming erodes privacy, chills everyday joy, and trains us to accept surveillance as entertainment.
If you care about digital ethics, creator responsibility, and online safety, this conversation offers clear guidelines: react to ideas, not random people; skip tiny accounts; slow down before you boost; and add context or move on. Subscribe, share with a friend who loves reaction content, and tell us your line: when does a reaction help, and when does it harm?
Hi, and welcome to the Toxic Cooking Show, where we break down toxic people into their simplest ingredients. I'm your host for this week, Lindsay McLean, and with me is my fantastic co-host, Christopher Patchett, LCSW. I, on my own, had decided to finally take a stance and come down and come out publicly in my hatred for reaction videos. Because I think we should all hate them.
SPEAKER_01:So okay, so I gotta how the fuck did you uh did you look up uh Sniper uh Sniper Wolf?
SPEAKER_03:Yes, I did.
SPEAKER_01:How how did you not hear about her during this whole no?
SPEAKER_03:I am actually surprised that I didn't. Like I was I was I read the whole thing and I was like, oh yeah, like this sounds like something that should have made you know its rounds on stuff that I watch. And somehow it didn't. I feel like I would remember having heard about some YouTuber chick who showed up live streaming at her enemy's house. Like I just I feel like that would stick in my brain. Alas, it didn't if I did hear about it. But you know, reaction videos on that topic. So I I think there are a couple different types of videos that all fall under the broad title of this is a reaction video. You have call-outs, you have response videos, you have stitches, you have the direct ones that like are just straight up reaction videos, and you have seen these, everyone has seen these. It ranges from me making a video and saying, I'm gonna tell you a story about how Christopher Patchett did me dirty, to me, I find a video of you dancing at a concert and you look really fucking stupid while you're dancing, and I post that like and maybe I do like a side-by-side where I'm like mocking you, or I periodically pop up and like make fun of how you're dancing and how stupid you look.
SPEAKER_01:Oh my god, if it came down to me dancing, I would mock myself on how stupid I look.
SPEAKER_03:See, you're safe. Yeah, these are they're ever it's a really popular format of video. People really like them, and again, sometimes it is useful because sometimes the person is providing additional information or context or clarifying something. A lot of them don't actually add anything. Like sometimes it's just the person, like there's no sound on their end, and they're just you see their faces, they're like, oh my god, like reacting to whatever is happening in the video, but they haven't actually added anything to the conversation. There is no conversation, in fact, they're just there. Wow, oh my god, even better than the ones where like there isn't even any sound, and they'll like fall out of the frame laughing. I'm like, I can't even see you anymore. And the types of people who do these, so again, there's this wide range of things I would say kind of fall under the reaction, and the type of people who do them also there's a big variety because you do have people who it's the occasional thing, like they may be doing it in response to a rude comment or in response to another video that came up in their field, and so they stitch that, they react to that to again, you know, maybe provide some more context or information to call out somebody for providing false information. You also have people who this is their whole spiel. They make no original content, they simply react to other people's videos. That's it. That's it. There are a lot of these people on there who, again, no original content. They find videos on their own, or people tag them in videos that are kind of within their niche. So, like, you know, I'll talk about him a little bit later, red flag guy. He'll get tagged in potential red flag videos. Other people, what is it, Freedune TV, I think is his username. It's just people being stupid. That's what he likes to react to.
SPEAKER_01:Do you know what I'm talking about? I I'm I'm curious where this is gonna go because uh two of my favorite like YouTube's is reaction videos.
SPEAKER_03:You may uh if I do this right, I hope your opinion will change.
SPEAKER_01:Either that or I'm gonna dox you.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, if I don't manage to, that'll be the thing. You're like, no, I'm not convinced, and to punish you for not convincing me, her address is do you even know my address? Actually, yes, you do.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, I was gonna say.
SPEAKER_02:Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
SPEAKER_03:So yeah, these they're they're really popular, they're everywhere. You even sometimes have people who it's just like viral random internet videos, and people jump on it again to kind of like laugh, react, or something, and like somehow that gets pushed to a wider audience. They're everywhere, they're fucking everywhere. And I firmly believe that they are making our lives worse. Here's why.
SPEAKER_01:You have a lot of convincing. Let's let us hear it.
SPEAKER_03:Okay, okay. The first issue is that these push media to people who might not have seen it otherwise. So a lot of the time when I see these reaction videos, I I never would have seen the original. That was not in my sphere of things that I like to watch. Like people being really bizarre or super niche content, or videos of people being shit to their partners. Like, that's not what I like to watch. Just putting that out there. And these reaction videos put that out there to a wider audience because the person who this is their whole thing is either reaction videos. They have really big platforms, a lot of these people, because this is a really again popular video format. And so that video that may actually have only had like a couple hundred views, it now has 250,000. And tied to that, you know, there's also the deal of like different platforms and stuff right there. And so you have stuff that's like coming up on TikTok that I don't use TikTok, so I don't have any way of seeing that. But people make the reaction videos, put that on Instagram. Again, that original content does not exist on Instagram. People who use that would never have seen it, would never have been exposed to it. And for the most part, it's just stupid shit, right? Like it's people being weird, it's people doing dumb things, it's people, you know, fucking around and finding out, and they've compiled it and put it there, and I was like, yeah, but I I wouldn't have seen it otherwise. And when it's just somebody being dumb, that's not a big issue, but when it's stuff like, you know, political or you know, stuff like red flag guy, so his real name is Dustin Pointer. Like, that is, and that's not doxing him, by the way. That that is his actual like name on Instagram, but people know him as Red Flag Guy. He's a classic example of this. I have looked back at some of the videos that he has stitched or you know, reacted to, and they only have like a couple hundred views. They're from really small creators, and he has given them this massive platform that now people are aware they exist. And it's like, yeah, more people are now going to find this person and potentially follow them. There's another guy who I think he's Australian, Will Hitchens. I forgot to write down his name. The blonde guy, the Australian.
SPEAKER_01:I I like how you're you're you're you're coming to me like I actually know. Oh, the the uh the Australian. Okay, yes, yes.
SPEAKER_03:Yes, yes, that one, yes.
SPEAKER_01:Yes.
SPEAKER_03:He's also a great example of he's stitching videos that I wouldn't have been exposed to before, and so it gives you this idea that like maybe this is a really big problem in the world because like I'm seeing this when it might not be.
SPEAKER_01:Okay, I think I know you're talking about now. The the Australian guy who uh he'll sit on his bed and react to the video of like toxic masculinity or something like that.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, yeah, yeah. That guy, that guy. He's got like blonde hair that's usually pulled back like up in the ponytail or man bun. Yeah, that one. See, you you know him. Again, he has this like massive platform.
SPEAKER_01:I I think the uh the man bun is probably the uh toxic trait there.
SPEAKER_03:Come on, let the man bun live. You're just jealous as a baldy.
SPEAKER_01:I'm proud of my baldness.
SPEAKER_03:Uh-huh. Uh-huh. You say that now. But speaking of red flag guy, in connection to that, some of these videos, and by some, I mean a lot of them, have the potential to spread misinformation. Because what you need to be asking yourself when you see that original video is like, do you know where this video comes from? Do you know he who the people are? Like, what's this stage? Are they actually actors? Because some of them are, some of these things are faked for views. Some of them are faked for views, and they are actually a parody. And if you go to, if you like trace all the way back to the original video, on the creator's main page, they will mention that this is a parody. But people don't be reading, and they will just see the video. And I've been caught by this too. Like, full disclosure, I've definitely seen this like type of thing and been like, What? And then realized that this was not true. You you don't know. And there have definitely been instances too where I've been watching a video and you look at and you're like, Wow, did the other person not realize they were being recorded? Like the camera angle is just stunning, and the lighting is just perfect, and like the camera is not wiggling too much, and it stays on their face, and it's held it it's being held up. How do they not stop and be like, yo, why are you holding your camera like that? before they go on and say the most heinous and racist thing known to mankind.
SPEAKER_01:The first thing that that comes to mind is so one of the things, or one of the type, because actually as as you're talking, I'm realizing more and more how many reaction YouTubes I actually do watch.
SPEAKER_02:Uh-huh.
unknown:Everywhere.
SPEAKER_01:But like one of my favorite ones is is this guy who debunks ghost videos. And that's part of it is like where the you'll you'll see the the cut at a perfect time where the guy is like swinging like the camera around real fast. He'll show like how somebody who is perfectly getting like you know, like the ghost in the background, and and how they just happen to get the camera in that that perfect spot at that perfect time.
SPEAKER_03:Imagine that. Yeah, this is like that. Some of these videos are very clearly like it it was just a bad situation. Like I've seen, you know, some that people have reacted to where you know the classic one is it's at a wedding and you see the woman say something or the bride say something like, you know, no, don't put it in my face, or whatever, and the the new husband is like, no, no, no, he I won't. And then it's like smash the cake in her face. And you're like, all right, I I think we can understand what was going on here. I think that was that was a legit video. But the other thing too is that even when you're like, nah, this is a legit video, you don't always have the information about what led up to this moment, what was happening around the people that you can't see, like what happened before or after. For instance, recently I saw this video that was going mildly viral. There was this woman in Bulgaria who was denied access to a flight, and you can see her like crying dramatically in front of the gate, and the problem was because her baggage was too big, and people were were mocking her for this, and then there were people who were like, No, you don't understand, like, this is a really big issue because you know, the airline people, other passengers offered to pay for her luggage, and the airline said no, so it's super unfair. It's like, is that true? We don't know, like we actually don't know if they did. There's no way to know, unless you were there. We don't know what was involved with all of this, and so people are just making up stuff that go along with these videos because you know they go viral, and so people want to hop on that, ride the train to you know, viral land and become famous and get some money off of this. And another classic example of that is everyone's favorite Coldplay Cheater video. I love that one, and I will I will address the the the issue of being like no reaction videos, but also oh my god, I love watching that video and all the reactions to it. But there were a lot of like things that popped up right around that. So there was like a fake apology letter that he wrote, there was somebody who I saw claiming, like, oh yeah, I was the person who actually like bought the tickets to the concert for them, and I got fired because of it. There's all of this misinformation just swirling around that you know, if you saw it and you believed it, you know, when I saw the apology video where he like tried to quote cold play at the end, I was like, man, fuck this guy. Like, already fuck him, but like what? And then supposedly it comes out like, oh, that's not true, and you're like, oh damn, I was so ready to hate him even more. But that is something that happens too when you have this reaction and then people pile on, is that you don't know what is true and what is not true anymore.
SPEAKER_01:Well, so like I'm I'm curious with with the apology letter, was it was it him reading this apology letter?
SPEAKER_03:There was an apology letter that appeared on the internet that he wrote, supposedly, okay, saying, Oh, I'm so sorry, I realized I fucked up. But you know, actually, I just I think it was really unfair that you know we got filmed like this, but anyway, as you know, one of my friends once sang, and then he quoted Coldplay, and people were obviously like ripping him to shreds. The company then came out and said, No, he didn't write it. I have yet to see an actual apology letter from him. So who knows? Supposedly, though, that was not his. The company said, like, that's a fake.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, I I did see something along the lines of like some girl who is coming out, I'm his wife, and blah blah blah. And it was it was it was a hundred percent a parody. And if you just saw like maybe the the first, like I don't know, maybe five, ten seconds, you would hate the guy even more. And as she's kind of going into it, then it's like, is it yeah, this gotta be a joke.
SPEAKER_03:So the person who said that they worked for Astronomer and you know bought the tickets from them, that was one of the ones I looked at and I was like, what?
SPEAKER_02:Really?
SPEAKER_03:You know, like that type of thing. It's like there's no way, unless you want to dox the person, which is what we're gonna get into next, that you can figure out like, is this actually true or not? And so again, and misinformation gets spread because you make a video, even if it is a parody, even if it is a joke, and people may not realize, they may just see a tiny bit of it and scroll away, but that fake information is now out there and linked to this, and it just it muddies the whole narrative. And certainly, you know, with cold plate doesn't matter because we knew they were fuckers to begin with. But for other people, you know, you might look and be like, wow, that's actually a really bad situation. You know, something happened and people completely misconstrued what was happening, and then all these reaction videos are pushing it to like a super wide audience, and people are jumping on, being like, I'm the grandma, and I was it's like, no, no, you're not grandma. Grandma's sitting right here, grandma doesn't even understand how TikTok works. Like so the third issue is doxing is when you publicly identify somebody or provide personal identifiable information about them without their consent. So that ranges from I'm watching a video and I'm like, oh my god, I know that person, and I write in the comments that Christopher D. Patchett born, you know, like list all the information.
SPEAKER_01:Damn, you even put in my middle name, too.
SPEAKER_03:I I do know your full middle name, I just didn't say it here. But I do know it. Do you know my middle name? Oh short shit. Close enough. I'll accept it.
SPEAKER_00:Fuckhead.
SPEAKER_03:There we go. And I thought we were friends. But yeah, so that's that's not like the lighter end, obviously, of talk because it can still have serious consequences. It also can range to, you know, and this is what we associate with it most often. You're mad at somebody, you're pissed at somebody, or whatever, and you're like, you know what, I'm gonna get you. And you look up this information and then you publish it. So the information may be publicly available, but you have taken that extra step of you found it and you put two and two together and said, Hey, this person right here, this is them, right? Like connection. Here you go. So there's, you know, there's certainly a lot of discussion about like, as we saw last week, using it, you know, like we like it when it's used to find Nazis or cheaters, cough, cough, Andy Byron, then Kristen Cabot. But people can be wrong, and this comes up a lot. Was it, you know, again, with the Coldplay video, people were on that shit like really fast. They identified this is him, this is her, and there was another woman who is briefly identified. You see her in the video, it's the woman with the brown hair who she has her face turned and she's she's covering it up a little bit. People originally identified her as another person in the company. Astronomer has said, supposedly, no, that's not her. That's we don't know who that is.
SPEAKER_01:Oh, damn, because I actually thought that she was the other person in a company, too.
SPEAKER_03:I did too. I did because people correctly identified Andy and Kristen, and I was like, I mean, this woman seems to maybe be attached to them, and she clearly is like looking embarrassed and weird. And people said, Yeah, like this this is her. You know, looked at the photo and was like, close enough. You a bitch. But apparently, maybe you not. And you know, I have to wonder if that poor woman, if indeed it wasn't her, you know, I'm sure she got hate mail. I'm sure she got people just like swarming all over her LinkedIn, leaving nasty messages. There have been instances of people who, you know, harassment again in public spaces or in public places online, people think they've identified the person and just go for them. Swatting is really common. I actually think in connection, is there was a guy who after the Boston Marathon bombing, what was that, 2013? I think.
unknown:Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:2013, 2014, yeah. You know, internet sleuths jumped on board and were like, we're gonna find like who's involved. And if I remember correctly, there was somebody who was identified and it was not him. He committed suicide.
SPEAKER_01:So what we what was the word that you used? Swafting?
SPEAKER_03:SWATING. SWAT SWATTEM is when you SWAT is when you call the SWAT police to somebody's house. Okay, you report, you report something, and you're like, they got bombs, they got drugs, and the SWAT team obviously is like, well, and they suit up and they show up at your house, like and kick down your door, and you're having dinner with your family.
SPEAKER_01:Damn.
SPEAKER_03:Mm-hmm. Yeah, it's those are extremes, but people be wildin', and you don't know what's going to happen, and especially in a case like this, where I think the vast majority of us, and if you're not in agreement, I have some questions for you and your spouse, are in agreement that what happened between Annie and Kristen was horrible, and they are bad, bad, bad people for it. You know, maybe maybe contacting his ex or soon-to-be ex-wife on Facebook isn't is not the right thing to do. Because that's what people were doing. People were like, No, they found her Facebook, they found her LinkedIn too, and were commenting stuff. And, you know, in general, it was relatively supportive, like, you got this girl, like, drop his ass, we'll help pay for the lawyer fees, like that type of thing. But still, I mean, you're, you know, she's just found out that her husband is cheating on her with the head of HR at his company. Let the poor woman process and deal with this in peace. Like, oh my god. This is she'll find out, trust me. The whole internet knows. And again, also, too, with the woman who is falsely identified, she now has to potentially live with this for the rest of her life. That somebody was like, This is her, and quote unquote doxxed her, but it wasn't. But now her name is put sometimes like tied up in things, and she's got that extra burden of proof to always have to show it's like, no, that wasn't me. Like, yeah, my name sounds familiar. Okay, I know why. My final beef with reaction videos, and this is the biggest one, is they normalize a lack of privacy. And I'm particularly worried about that in the US right now. Thank God I don't live there. Saz is true.
SPEAKER_01:Just keep bragging about it.
SPEAKER_03:Look, we we have our own problems here, okay? We got problems here. Don't worry.
SPEAKER_01:Now that I know what swatting is, I'm gonna I'm gonna see if there's like l swat.
SPEAKER_03:Swatting.
SPEAKER_01:Don't you fucking dare.
SPEAKER_03:But this this is something that we are currently seeing in the US and actually in other countries too. Um the UK is putting in place some laws that I believe it's just around like porn websites, like you have to prove your age. And that sounds really good, right? Like, we don't want children having access to this, but it can be used by governments who may not have your best interest at heart, and that is something that you have to always keep in mind. We've definitely, when it comes to privacy in the US and in other places too, we're in that, you know, classic frog in the pot scenario where if this happened all at once, we'd be like, oh my god, no, but it's a little bit here and a little bit there. And something that you have to keep in mind is that the same tech that allows us to mock dumb CEOs and head of HR is the tech that ICE is using to deport your neighbor. That's yeah, it it's it's the same type of stuff, it's the same skill set that is being used for good and evil. And it also, in addition, I guess that's bad enough, on a lesser, but I think similar scale, it means that you are constantly living in fear of ending up in a video. And yes, you could say, hey, I'm not doing anything wrong, so it's not a problem, and that's true. You know, maybe don't cheat with people at concerts if you don't want to be found out. But, you know, are you now going to have to go through your entire life being like, oh wow, I don't want to dance in public because somebody might film me and I'm gonna show up on the internet and people are gonna mock me. This happens. You know, we see videos all the time of somebody doing some stupid little dance and they're just having fun. They're just living their best life, but somebody filmed them and put them, put that online, and we may not have their name, but because doxing happens, like now, now we do. And there may also be videos that you look at and you're like, what fresh hell is this? Like, what what are we doing in this video? And it was maybe a video that was done between friends, it was done as a joke, it, you know, it's been taken completely out of context, but now these people are being mocked all over the internet when all they wanted to do was like just have fun. Think about the number of times that we have said stuff and our chat on WhatsApp that if you just took a screenshot of that and put that out in public, we would be cancelled in like negative three seconds. There's a lot. There's a lot that we say, but you know, in context, you're like, oh no, this is fine. And that's what we're doing to people is that we're taking little snippets of them often out of context, and that can have like really outsized effects because you're just existing, and it might even be for a quote unquote good reason. Like, you know, you take a video of the person because you're like, wow, look at this like hot guy walking in front of me, or this hot chick, like look at her dress, you know. This is so cool. But because you posted that, the person that person may have a stalker who now knows where they live. That person may that that homeless person who you gave a hundred bucks to and filmed, which you're a bad person for doing that, but you're like, oh, this is a good thing, like, shouldn't you be happy? Like, watch this reaction. That video goes viral, and they may have people in their life who didn't know they were in that situation, and that they didn't want to know or didn't want them to find out about that, and now they are forever known as like, oh yeah, that homeless person who got a hundred bucks.
SPEAKER_01:I I I'm gonna have to to counter to to save my my my enjoyment here.
SPEAKER_03:Okay.
SPEAKER_01:So I think kind of going from what you're saying, there's two types of reactions. There is the type where somebody puts out a video trying to get views, and somebody reacts to that video, whether it's negative or whether it is uh a positive or whatever, but they're they're using that that video to talk about their own thing.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Then there's the other type of reaction where it is somebody who just happened to get caught up. So like I one of the first or one of the things I think of is the first video to go viral was that kid who was filming himself at school and he was doing like Star Wars martial art.
SPEAKER_03:Uh-huh.
SPEAKER_01:Do you remember this?
SPEAKER_03:No. No, no, I've got God and anime on my side, kid.
SPEAKER_01:No, the this was this was before YouTube or anything. This is probably like 2003, 2004.
SPEAKER_03:Hold on, I'm gonna I'm gonna look this up.
SPEAKER_01:I think you might be able to find out under Star Wars kid.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, I know this kid. I've seen this video. Yep.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, so that this was like the the first first video that I actually want to borrow.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:And basically all it was was him at his high school, like during during he used the uh the the the film studio. Like it was like a little high school foo or film studio. And he was just he was fucking around. And then somebody found the tape and put it up on online. And obviously, I mean, you see, you see, he's he's not exactly the world's greatest martial artist.
SPEAKER_02:No.
SPEAKER_01:But yeah, I mean, it it really crushed him. He was he was a fucking teenager.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, he was just having his living his best, like stupid Star Wars life. We've all done that. Let's be honest. We've all like that.
SPEAKER_01:Oh my god. I mean, like I still to this day, I will still do air guitar.
SPEAKER_03:I expect nothing less.
SPEAKER_01:I mean, that would if if people were to see a 46-year-old man doing air guitar to Nirvana and shit like that, yeah, I think I'd be pretty fucking embarrassed too.
SPEAKER_03:But you're you are right that there are two types. And there is the type that invites people to comment and react with it, and there's the type that was kind of put out without consent. And the type that people are putting out there and they know that they are doing something whack and they are purposely doing it to get a reaction, that is very different from the person who is simply existing and did something weird and now there's a reaction. While these are both reaction videos, they're going to get reactions, they're going to get people talking about them. I would agree with you that there's a big difference. And so I'm not saying that a hundred percent of reaction videos are bad.
SPEAKER_01:Damn right.
SPEAKER_03:There are some good ones in here, but that's a discussion I want to have. Is where do we draw that line of this is, you know, something that we can make fun of? This is a you know good reason to find people. Because you could say that, like, what's the difference between you know, the Andy Byron, Kristen Cabot? Because let's not forget, she also is married and was cheating. We all we only talk about him, but it's both of them.
SPEAKER_02:Fuckers.
SPEAKER_03:That you know, what's the difference between them and you know, somebody who is filming other stuff and maybe catches somebody, you know, doing something a little bit weird on the camera. And they know that they're showing up on the Jumbotron, but it's not, you know, I'm cheating on my spouse with my coworker.
SPEAKER_01:One of the reactions I I do like is it's uh Forrest Valmore, I think his name is. So he has his channel, it's uh Reacteria. And he he does science, science, like I uh reactions, and one one of the things I he he does, he does like videos of different videos. One is you know, like grandpop goes to college, and it's it's basically it's a guy who he's in his 60s, he never did like a film before, he had a budget of like ten dollars in his shows, and probably just wanted to do something fun and do something for his church or whatever, but like in in the process, uh the guy is ripping apart like biology, which this guy is a teacher of. Yeah, so you know, he he reacts to the video and he he talks about like the the points that this guy is uh making and trying to debunk, and he's like reacting to them and and saying, like, this is what you know like the actual facts are. So one of the things that he has said in the past is that he tries to be responsible when it comes to videos, that he'll go for videos that has like a decent following. So like a lot of the videos that he reacts to is like Answers in Genesis, where you know, again, it it's just you know, it's a very large channel, and and he'll do reactions off of videos like that. Or like the the Ghost and Bunker, you know, like somebody's posting up like an actual video, like trying to show, oh look, my house is haunted, and blah blah blah. And he's just like, yeah, you can obviously like if you cut it down frame by frame, you see the splicing right there. Yeah, and things like that. Another one that I really love is it's it's a music teacher, she a singing teacher. And she's I I I absolutely love her innocence. She's about my age, but she's never seen like Alice and Chains or Toll and things like like big bands back in the 90s.
SPEAKER_02:Uh-huh.
SPEAKER_01:And she's she's watching these performances for the first time, and she's going off about like, you know, like their voices and like how they're they're using their voice for like certain things and how they're getting the effects and everything like that. But I I love the fact that when you watch her, you just see her eyes like blowing, like, where the fuck have I been for the past 40 years?
SPEAKER_03:Come to the metal side.
SPEAKER_01:So so yeah, I mean, obviously, Tool is known by millions and millions and millions of people. So her reacting to a tool video is not going to shame them or anything, even if she she wasn't amazed by you know his voice.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah. She's also adding something to the discourse there to say, hey, I am a professional music teacher and I can explain potentially to you why this is actually a really cool thing that they're doing, or a unique thing, or you know, maybe give you some context as to why this is the way it is. That is that is what I would classify as a good reaction video. Again, you're adding something to my life. When I watch this, I come away smarter, not dumber.
SPEAKER_01:And and yeah, I I think that you know, the the whole thing that you know, I I spoke about like last week with Sniper Wolf, where if it's just you know, somebody who's doing dumb things and they post up on TikTok, and your reaction is wow, oh my god, why are you doing that? Huh? You know, like, or oh my god, the the the ones I hate more than anything is where the person doesn't even say a word and just like points at the video and like shaking their head.
SPEAKER_03:Yes, right? Like you have added nothing, you have taken away from the video because now I've got to look at the video and it's tiny because your stupid ass is like hovering around. I hate those that need to be banned. Yeah, though those are bad. There is also this is why I mentioned doxing and privacy concerns. Even when you think you're doing something good, kind of sort of, you may not be. I had a really weird incident happen to me last year where I was watching a video, and it's normally the type of video I'd like to scroll away from or tell Instagram that I'm not interested in. For the reason I didn't, it was this dude who was reacting to you know how people will leave nasty comments on videos, and a really common thing to do is to go back to their profile and publish a photo of what they actually look like. Like, if you do you know what I'm talking about?
SPEAKER_01:No.
SPEAKER_03:Okay. So imagine that I make videos and you patches hop on my video and you comment like, God, this fat bitch won't shut up, type thing. What I would do is I would then click to your profile, find a photo of you, either your profile photo on whatever platform we are, or go through other photos of you and publish another one as a way of kind of shaming you to be like, you called me a fat bitch. Look who's the real fat bitch.
SPEAKER_01:Okay.
SPEAKER_03:That that is something I see a lot, and sometimes it's warranted. But I stopped kind of enjoying those at one point when I, for that reason, watched this video, and you know, these were women who were making nasty comments on this guy's page, and then he would like flip through to a photo of them, and he showed the one, you know, woman who'd made the comment, and the next photo he showed was a person that I know, and it was not the same person in the photo, and it was this reaction of like, oh my god, I know who that is. And I watched it multiple times, and I I get it, both of these people had like distinctly colored hair, and so I would guess that he just did like a Google reverse image search type thing, and her like Facebook profile photo showed up, and he did not do due diligence and make sure that that was actually the right, you know, brightly colored haired woman that he was talking about. Um so I I reported the video and then I had to do like the awkward thing of messaging her. It's like, hey, I've been talking like 10 years, and this is a really weird thing to say, but I just want you to know I discovered this, I've reported it. Like, I just want you to be safe in case people and it didn't look like it had gone out to you know millions of people. But you know, I don't want her to get all of this negative, you know, because people could then take that photo and be like, all right, you know, we're reverse Google reverse image search that she now shows up, and she has people on her Facebook page being like, wow, I can't believe you said that. You're a terrible person. I'm gonna report you to your employer. It was very disconcerting to see her be like, oh my god, no, no, no, I know who this is. Have I influenced you in any way to maybe be you know not as big of a fan of reaction videos?
SPEAKER_01:No. But but wait, wait, wait.
SPEAKER_03:A little bit.
SPEAKER_01:This is this is so I I think because I'm already on that page that the you know, like I said, the the reactions I uh or reaction videos I do like are not the reaction videos of dumb shit, or that it is just some dude like pointing at somebody, or that it is a reaction of a teenager who who left a copy of a tape somewhere, but it's it is reactions of like actual of actual videos that people put online to get the attention.
SPEAKER_03:This is true. You were already going for like the more okay type of reaction videos, as opposed to the not okay ones. I guess even for instance, when it comes to stuff like red flag guy, do you feel any differently now that you know you take all of this type of thing into account?
SPEAKER_01:I uh so I will say that I think that, yes, I do agree that it is bringing attention to videos that shouldn't get attention.
unknown:Okay.
SPEAKER_03:I I will accept that as a small pin. And now, where do you see us going from here with reaction videos and how we react to them?
SPEAKER_01:So I I think this, and this kind of goes, I I I think that just kind of based off of that that whole thing of like giving videos attention that shouldn't get attention, this is kind of goes along with uh an episode that we did way back when of you know building these platforms for like you know Jordan Peterson and Andrew Tate and things like that, where the only reason why they have a voice is because people gave them that voice.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:And same thing with this is that you you have somebody who is the red flag guy, and they're bringing out videos that only have like two or three hundred uh views, but now all of a sudden they're they're getting all these other views because the wrong person found it or or the wrong people find it, who are like, yeah, you know, like I I I think so much, blah blah blah. Because there are there are any even content where it is pretty big, you know, like so like the first thing I think of is Nick, what's his name? You know, your body my choice.
SPEAKER_03:Ah yes.
SPEAKER_01:Like I never heard of that kid until that came out.
SPEAKER_03:Yes, and then suddenly his name and that fucking phrase was everywhere, and it still is, unfortunately.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. So like, yeah, I mean, even though the the intention was good to to shame this person, dude still makes millions of dollars, and dude now has a bigger following because everybody was reacting to his video.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, I think that being able to kind of find that that that division of where are you giving this person a voice versus where are you trying to inform other people?
SPEAKER_03:I think that's fair, and and that falls in line with what I would like to see, which is for people to just be maybe slow down a little bit before you dox someone. Maybe slow down just a little bit before you hop on the train and make a reaction video about something that you don't, you know, it it's breaking news. We don't have all the information or you don't fully understand. I saw, oh my god, I saw this video on YouTube that I knew about the drama. And long story short, there was a woman on Instagram who suddenly appeared and was like, I'm gonna teach you how to have a micro bakery out of your house and support your family. And people were a little bit confused and they could front her about. Like, you just suddenly appeared, and you know, all of your videos uh feature you wearing the same like two or three outfits and the same type of clips, and they were all made at the same time, and like, you know, what what are your credentials for this? And she got like really defensive about it, and you know, the rest is is not interesting, but there was a guy on YouTube who did a reaction video to it. He had no knowledge about baking, he had no knowledge about operating a business, a small business, especially one with food, outside of your house. He had no insider knowledge, he was just uh filling in the space between the videos and turned it into like a 20-minute video. That was like, and and now he's profiting off of this. And red flag guy sells merch, by the way. That that is that's a different problem that like we won't get into here. But you know, just imagine that one the worst day of your life, your husband, maybe ex-husband now, smashes something at your baby shower, and somebody posts that video online without your consent, and this guy is reacting to it, pushing it to you know, millions of people, and then he's the one who gets money from it. Yeah, that that is shitty.
SPEAKER_01:And he also does shitty uh sponsorships with uh shitty companies like he does better help, yeah. Yeah, that's where that's where I lost complete respect for him.
SPEAKER_03:I knew I okay. To be fair, I was always looking for a reason to hate him. Something about him is rubbed me the wrong way. So I'm looking at anything. But yeah, I would love for people to just maybe take a couple moments to think about like is this something that I should be publishing? Will it do good because there are legitimate reasons? It's like again, name and shame people who are, as we talked about last week, willing to admit that they are a fascist. I do want to know that person's name. We all want to know that person's name. Like, I think that's good. The people who are cheating, yeah, you deserve to be named and shamed and to have your life fall apart, you know. But maybe take that step back and kind of evaluate person and be like, wow, how would I feel if I was the person in this video? You know, and I wasn't doing anything wrong. I was just making a weird face or having a bad day, and I ended up here. Would I be upset? Probably. So on our scale of toxicity, where would you reate? Where would you reate? Where would you rate reaction videos? Shut up.
SPEAKER_01:I was like, what the hell does re-ate mean?
SPEAKER_03:The new verb. Oh my god, new verbs are dropping left right. Yes, would you reate reactions as a green potato? They'll make you sick if you eat them, but you can also just peel off the green part. Are they a death cap mushroom, 50-50 chance of death or coma, even when cooked? Or are they a delicious but deadly last snack with lime jello and to freeze?
SPEAKER_01:I I'm gonna have to put this at a solid death cap. I think that just for all the reasons I was kind of saying about like where do we go from here? That yeah, first off, I I I'm gonna sound so old saying this, but I think that kids today are are ruining quality entertainment. Like, literally, if you are making or if you are getting hundreds, thousands, millions of views for sitting there and pointing at a video and shaking your head, like come on, are you fucking serious? Like I said, I I still I feel bad for that that kid, the Star Wars kid, because you know, even today, if you look up his name, like it is probably gonna show up like 10,000 like Star Wars kids.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Because again, that was the first video to go viral. But yeah, I I think that shit like that, that that's really, you know, extremely toxic. But then again, like, you know, maybe it's me being biased or whatever, but like the videos that I do watch, I think that I think that it makes for good entertainment, and then also is kind of teaching people things. You just as you said, you're leaving the room smarter than when you walked in rather than dumber. So I would say definite uh death cap.
SPEAKER_03:I'm gonna have to go with whatever death caps that Australian woman used, where three out of four people who ate her delicious meal died. It this is not antifreeze, but I do think the potential for misbehavior by people on the internet, like I've I've said entirely too many times, you know, once you put that information out there, you don't control it. And you may have had good intentions, but you don't know what people on the internet will do with that. You don't know who is going to get a hold of that information and maybe mentally not be doing too hot and have a bad reaction to that and decide that they're going to handle it. Like with Pizzagate, you know, somebody gets somebody sees this and gets really, really upset about it and is like, I'm I'm gonna fix the problem. And out they go. And you know, you don't have control over that anymore. You can't account for what everyone's going to do, but because we know this is such a problem, I think it is something that you have to consider when you're propagating this type of information, making sure that it's, you know, truly like you said, the music teacher. That's fine. That is more or less consensual. Did Tools say, like, yes, you can do this? No, but it's also clearly publicly available footage of a concert that, you know, thousands of people went to. So there's definitely a difference there versus something that you just found on the depths of TikTok that you don't have the context for or the background information for, and you're now commenting on it, you know, being like, wow, look at these people. Like, you see this video like crazy, how he would treat her like that. It's like, well, you you don't, do you know what happened before? Do you know what is happening right now? Do you know who these people are? No, you don't. You're just reacting to whatever people send you, and you're not doing the proper checks to make sure that this is a legit video that you should be reacting to. This not actors, and it's not a parody and it's not something fake. Like, I think that's why. Oh, and then also let's not forget that like when we when we normalize the fact that like people are out filming all the time and that you could be filmed at any moment, I think that is very bad for the public. That's why I don't want to live in China, for instance. I'm not okay with that level of public surveillance. Like, are there, you know, do I live in a big city? And so are there going to be public surveillance cameras? Yes. Yes, there are. But it's a very different level of, you know, you might walk behind, knowing or fearing that you might walk behind somebody who's doing a dance, and you end up infamous online because you you did you, I don't know, you pulled a wedgie or something as you were walking along, you thought no, we could see you. And you know, some damn tic-tacker over there is doing a little dance, and you know, they see you, and now everybody knows you as like wedgie dude. It's like, no. So yeah, and and because we've already established too that people be bullying a lot, I think that it's you really gotta be careful. And I would love to see us do fewer reaction videos and maybe steer more towards, you know, the nicer ones. And then I would be willing to lower my rating, but as it is, I just see too many that they come from unknown sources. People are jumping on it because it's a trend, people are profiting off of it, and that's why they keep doing this, and they don't care if the video is actually legit or not, because they just want to push their merch or their comedy show or you know, whatever it is. That's their main goal, and they're using this as you know a way to promote that. I think they're just a few too many of those people. Again, not Anna Freeze, but we are we're getting close.
SPEAKER_01:Okay, I'll I'll buy that.
SPEAKER_03:All right. Ooh, that's two in the row we didn't agree on. Look at us go. So if you agree with patches or with me, you should let us know. You can write to us at toxic at awesomelifeskills.com. You can, if you're listening on Spotify, you can use the text us feature. Uh, we will get a ping because it it it's an email to both of us. So, you know, have fun with that one. Use it responsibly, do not dox anyone. You can also find us on Facebook, Instagram, Blue Sky, technically Twitter, and technically TikTok. Until next week, this has been the Toxic Cooking Show. Bye.
SPEAKER_01:Bye.
