Challenge and Reaction Videos Panel at Summer in the City 2017

The Challenge and Reaction Videos panel took place on Saturday of Summer in the City 2017. Moderated by TenEighty’s co-editor AJ Brinnand, the panellists included Sam King, couple helloitsamie and Aaron Foster, Anderson and Harrison Webb, and Paul Parker from Where’s My Challenge.

Starting off the discussion, AJ asked each of the panellists a quickfire question about the world of challenge and reaction videos. Starting with Paul, AJ asked what he thinks makes a good challenge video, to which Paul responded that you should do something that’s as bizarre as you can, that’s shareable, and “something that you can show all your family – sometimes it will be so crazy you don’t want to show your nan!” Moving on to Harrison and Anderson Webb, AJ asked how they decide which challenges to film for their channels, and they responded that they like “the dumbest stuff you can do”.

Amie spoke about her favourite videos from her own channel, saying that she particularly liked the How Well Do We Know Each Other? video that she filmed with partner Aaron. AJ then asked Sam what makes one of his own videos stand out for him; he responded that he particularly likes doing challenge videos where they eat lots of food, which are lots of fun. Moving on to chat about reaction videos, Amie also mentioned filming a reaction video to her own old videos and said, “it was really weird to see how much we’ve changed”.

After these initial questions, the panel moved on to a challenge round, where AJ asked each of the panellists to recreate a popular challenge video live on stage. Harrison and Anderson were up first, where they recreated the Salt and Ice Challenge, which is one of their most popular videos online. Sam’s most popular video is the Stuff Your Mouth Challenge, which he recreated by filling his mouth with a number of marshmallows. Aaron then participated in a similar challenge with Amie, beating her in the Chubby Bunny Challenge by fitting nine marshmallows in his mouth at once. Closing the challenge segment, Paul recreated his 60 Packets of Tic Tac Mini Boxes Challenge video by downing six packets of Tic Tacs in quick succession.

The panel then opened to questions from the audience. One audience member wanted to know how the creators thought up video ideas for their channels. Amie explained that she keeps a list of ideas that she looks through, while AJ mentioned the comments section as a useful source for his ideas. When asked for an example of a challenge that they thought would be amazing but in reality didn’t work out, Amie responded with her How Well Do We Know Each Other? video, explaining that they actually ended up filming it twice, while Paul mentioned the chicken nugget challenge.

Photos by Aria Mark.