Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?
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Notes -
Why do people enjoy reaction videos? I can understand the appeal for content creators: they are cheap and quick to make and please the gods of YT algorithms.
But why would I watch someone watch a video? Is it a parasocial thing, enjoying things you liked "together" with your "friend"?
Seeing what other people think of a work of media can be interesting and entertaining if you're interested in the work, in commentary from those people, or both. People read reviews and analysis of works they have already seen. Sites like Reddit and 4chan have discussion threads when an episode/movie/etc. comes out, and people read those threads even if they have no interest in commenting themselves or long after the thread is dead (for 4chan the threads expire but there's sites like desuarchive.org).
It's not that weird that people like reading Scott's review of One Thousand And One Nights, right? You could say that it is "parasocial", in some sense it is playing the same role as a two-way conversation on the subject with an entertaining friend, but that isn't normally how you would describe the appeal. Well, Scott isn't going to write a review for the latest episode of anime you watched, likely no writer of his ability will, but it might still be interesting to see what people have to say on /a/ or /r/anime or one of the few surviving anime blogs. Reaction videos are another variant of the same thing - generally more in-depth than an internet comment, with the moment-to-moment commentary of a live-watch thread or chatroom, but generally without the more thorough analysis of someone writing about the work in retrospect. (Though there are reaction videos that will spend over an hour going back over and talking about the work after it's finished, like an impromptu blog post or review.)
That isn't to say the low-status reputation of reaction videos doesn't have justification. Unlike earlier psuedo-reaction videos like MST3K, they have a very low barrier to entry and are unscripted, so naturally quality is typically low. (However the combination of the low barrier to entry and more detail than a typical internet comment may mean they are the most detailed commentary that exists for a particular piece of obscure media.) They appeal to people who prefer video to text, and while there are various reasons for such a preference one is that some people struggle to read, so when they appeal to the lowest common denominator that is often lower than the lowest common denominator for writing. Video is much less time-efficient than text (mitigated by running concurrently with the original work, so it also functions as a rewatch). Less time to think than reviews or literary criticism means commentary is often more shallow. (Though it can be more detailed and unfiltered, watching someone play a videogame can tell you a lot more than some 3-minute scripted GameStop video review.) Of course high-status media commentary is no guarantee of quality either, academics at English departments or writers for magazines like the London Review of Books churn out plenty of garbage. The very element of status often makes this worse, such as by incentivizing viewing everything through the lens of a currently high-status ideology. This is especially bad for professional writing about pop-culture, like video-game reviewers, which often aims for the ideology and pretentiousness of academic writing with less intelligence or knowledge. In any case, the point is that reaction videos are just another subset of media and cultural commentary with various advantages and disadvantages over the other kinds, rather than some alien psychological phenomenon.
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