I can't stop watching videos of people discovering Beds are Burning by Midnight Oil. Send help
Briefly

I can't stop watching videos of people discovering Beds are Burning by Midnight Oil. Send help
"Oh the pleasant pain of waiting impatiently for someone to understand the point! Oh the power of dramatic irony; the smug joy of knowing something they don't. Oh how I wallowed in these feelings and more, when YouTube sucked me into a genre I had previously known nothing about: First Time Hearing videos, where people film themselves watching the music video of a song they've never heard before and grace viewers with their impromptu reactions, thoughts and facial expressions."
"Even before noticing the six-figures-plus viewing counts and the apparently endless number of people vying to deliver more, I instantly clocked all the trappings of the very best attention economy traps. You know: the immediate, certain knowledge that despite your best intentions, growing hunger, thirst and backpain; despite the increasingly urgent pleas of your neglected children you're just going to slump there swiping your finger for hours until your higher brain finally kicks in."
First Time Hearing videos show individuals filming themselves watching and reacting to songs they have never heard, capturing spontaneous emotional and facial responses. The format leverages dramatic irony by offering viewers prior knowledge of the music while the reactor remains unaware, creating a smug pleasure in audience members. The genre functions as an attention-economy trap, prompting compulsive, prolonged viewing despite real-life obligations. Notable examples include a Black Pegasus reaction to Tim Minchin’s “Prejudice” and a reaction to Midnight Oil’s “Beds are Burning,” with some videos reaching hundreds of thousands of views. Anticipation and the tease of controversy intensify engagement.
Read at www.theguardian.com
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