You would be surprised by how many people online earn a living doing reaction videos. There’s just something about watching a video of a person watching another video that seems like a fun idea. I have seen a lot of different reactions, most of which have been about music videos. As somebody that’s a fan of a certain artist or group, you sort of want to be validated in a way. And people who do reaction videos to the type of content you normally watch seems like a make or break situation. I know that this whole thing is weird. But it’s somehow a fairly simple thing to do.
NEXT: Be Rich Like No Life Shaq
Compared to other types of content that you see on places like YouTube or even livestream platforms like Twitch, it’s fairly easy to do a reaction video. You do need some equipment in order to film a reaction video, mainly a computer, a camera and a microphone. But if you’re somebody who wants to get into content creation, you probably already have that type of equipment. All you really have to do is find a video to react to and start filming. It’s that easy. The process of creating is easy. But finding an audience for your content is hard.
The reason that I am talking about reaction videos and content creators is that I am writing an article about a fairly popular content creator who goes by the name No Life Shaq. Personally, I haven’t really seen much of his videos appear in my suggestions even though I watch a lot of reaction videos from different creators on YouTube. Though I guess me not being much of a fan of hip-hop and rap doesn’t really help. Still, despite mostly being focus on reacting to hip-hop and rap videos, No Life Shaq or Shaquille Davis in real life became well-known for reactions to songs by artists outside of the genres he usually listens to like Metallica and even Chris Stapleton.
There isn’t really a lot of interviews made with Shaquille that I could find. Although the one that he did with Complex Canada was really helpful in me understanding how he got into reaction videos. A lot of people, like Shaquille, grew up in a house that listened to a lot of music. Bear in mind, the radio was the predominant way that people listened to music before streaming services became a thing. That was the only way you could listen to music without having to buy an album.
Looking at the oldest video that he had on his channel, it seems like he didn’t initally start with reacting to music videos. His first video was reacting to a compilation of Conor McGregor’s funniest moments. He did the video with somebody who may or may not be his significant partner? It took him about four months before he started reacting to rap and hip-hop videos. Most of the videos that he did after were just those kinds of videos. It took him a full year before he posted a video of him reacting to Metallica’s One. He had already had a sizeable audience back then. He was getting a few thousand views on his videos. But that was one that pushed him into a sensation.
Like I said in one of the previous paragraphs, he eventually went on to react to other genres. And it proved to be successful. He mentions in the interview that he did that he doesn’t really listen to other songs from the artists that he has reviewed that aren’t in the genres of hip-hop and rap. He just lets the people in the comments section tell him what he should react to next.
At the point that I am writing this, Shaquille has amassed almost four million subscribers on YouTube. His videos nowadays get tens of thousands of views. Still, he has a net worth of about $900,000. Sometimes the amount of subscribers you have is often disproportionate to the amount of views that you get from your videos. A lot of creators on YouTube struggle with this. It’s often hard to do the thing you’re good at but also finding ways to get people interested in the stuff that you do.
