ReactionVideos

Quora Answer : During the pandemic, it seems there is more acoustic music than before on social media. Do you believe these times have created a resurgence of folk music?

Dec 22

I think not just the pandemic, but social media in general, has created a taste for low-key, spontaneous performance. Whether that's singing in your kitchen, or busting dance moves to a highly produced pop track in the lounge.

People want to watch other people "engage with" music.

To me, one of the most extraordinary phenomena of our time is "reaction videos".

We now watch videos on YouTube of people listening to music.

If anyone had told us, 30 years ago, that watching some guy gurning at us as he "listens to Pink Floyd for the first time" would be cutting edge popular entertainment in the 21st century, we'd have probably just laughed pityingly.

But that's where we are.

And to be fair, done well, reaction videos are indeed an interesting and engaging YouTube genre. I'm not dissing them.

But I would read the rise in acoustic music on social media more in that light. It's about watching people engage with music, in whatever way, including learning instruments and showing off how well they can play them.

Rather than a wholesale rejection of modern, highly produced, popular music in itself.

MTV created an "unplugged" niche for "acoustic" music in the 90s. That's always been a viable niche. But it didn't change or influence the mainstream zeitgeist much.