The Age of Para-Content

The over-abundance of context has killed unique horizons

There is more content about content than content itself. Streams of gameplay, reaction videos, reviews, analysis, etc. are all forms of para-content, or content about content.

In December 2023, Rockstar Games dropped the trailer for the highly anticipated Grand Theft Auto VI. In just 24 hours, it was viewed over 93 million times! In the same period, a deluge of fan content was made about the trailer and it generated 192 million views, more than double that of the official trailer. Youtube’s 2024 Fandom Survey reports that 66% of Gen Z Americans agree that “they often spend more time watching content that discusses or unpacks something than the thing itself.” (Youtube Culture and Trend Report 2024)

We are staunchly in the Age of Para-Content.

Para-content is not new. Much like the discussions and dissections populating YouTube fan channels, ancient scholarly traditions have long embraced similar practices. This dialogue between the original text and the interpretation is exemplified, for instance, in the Midrash, the collection of rabbinic exegetical writings that interprets the written and oral Torah. Midrashim “discern value in texts, words, and letters, as potential revelatory spaces. They reimagine dominant narratival readings while crafting new ones to stand alongside—not replace—former readings. Midrash also asks questions of the text; sometimes it provides answers, sometimes it leaves the reader to answer the questions”. (Gafney 2017)

The Midrash represents a form of religious para-content. It adds, amends, interprets, extends the text’s meaning in service of a faith-based community. Contemporary para-content plays a similar role in providing insights, context and fan theories surrounding cultural objects of love, oftentimes crafting new parallel narratives and helping fans insert themselves into the work.

The phenomenon is extremely popular in hip-hop where “reaction videos” to songs can help make or break the popularity of new singles. The reaction videos help the audience understand how the song should be received. The highly expressive YouTubers perform an emotional exegesis, punctuating and highlighting the high points and key bars of the song, much like the radio DJ of yore. TikTok is now flooded with reactions to the now unforgettable “Mustard” exclamation in Kendrick’s “TV Off,” affirming to fans that this moment is a pivotal moment in the song, validating that it is culturally resonant. In the Midrash, the rabbinic authority serves as a reliable certitude in the soundness of one’s interpretation of the Hebrew Bible or Tanakh. The music-reaction-video helps the viewer reliably assess whether something is good or “mid” (see DJ Akademiks falling asleep to Certified Lover Boy), and which parts tend to generate the most hype, two highly valuable pieces of socio-cultural information.

Para-content makers may be called “creators” or “influencers” but their actual role is that of “contextualizer”, the shapers of a cultural artifact’s horizon. The concept of “horizon” originates from “reception theory” in literary theory which posits that the meaning of a text is not a fixed property inscribed by its creator but a dynamic creation that unfolds at the juncture of the text and its audience. It underscores the active role of the audience in interpreting and imbuing texts—whether literary works, films, or media content—with meaning, emphasizing that a text's significance is not merely excavated by readers but is co-constructed by them. Both the text and the audience “give”. The theory acknowledges that each act of reception is a unique encounter, suggesting that texts are not closed systems but open horizons of possibility, subject to the interpretative freedoms of their audiences.

The notable shift in our era of para-content is that the audience has fully abdicated the horizon-making to the “contextualizer”.

Specifically, German literary theorist Hans Robert Jauss coined the term “Horizon of Expectation” (“Erwartungshorizont” in German) to describe the encounter between text and audience. In essence, this word refers to the framework through which an individual understands, interprets, and evaluates a text, relying on the cultural norms and standards specific to their historical period. Thus, these change over time and readers may perceive and esteem a work differently than those from past generations.

Back to our streamers. Now this theory traditionally places a large emphasis on the reader as the maker of the horizon. The notable shift in our era of para-content is that the reader (reader as a broad term for the audience of a media artifact) has fully abdicated the horizon-making to the “contextualizer”. Contextualizers, such as reaction video creators or fan analysts, guide the process by highlighting specific elements, framing interpretations, and modeling emotional or intellectual responses. They do not provide an open-ended range of possibilities, they prescribe a defined one! They shape how audiences situate themselves within the text’s horizon, directing attention to particular meanings and experiences.

This is not new. The radio DJ played a similar role. Think about the infamous DJ Funk Flex live premiere of JAY-Z and Kanye West’s Otis on July 20th, 2011. Funk Flex is performing a kind of interpretive choreography that affirms the song’s cultural resonance, bombs and all. This guidance acts as a compass for audiences, helping them align their interpretations with shared values and communal touchpoints (the bombs!). In this sense, the contextualizer becomes an active participant in the dialogic creation of meaning, reinforcing reception theory’s assertion that texts are not closed systems. The text’s reception is curated, crafted, and collectively navigated through the work of contextualizers. What is notable today is that the singular monocultural radio DJ of yore has now been replaced, in the our age of para-content, by a decentralized field of contextualizers all contextualizing simultaneously. There are so many reaction videos that there are compilations of reaction videos. See this one for “TV Off.” This channel which creates these reaction video compilations (para-content about para-content lol) itself has 156,000 subscribers.

The American economist Tyler Cowen often uses the refrain “Context is that which is scarce” to describe that while art, information and content may be abundant, understanding—the ability to situate that information within a meaningful context—remains a rare and valuable resource. Para-content thrives precisely because it claims to provide this scarce context. Reaction videos, analyses, and reviews function as bridges, offering audiences a way to make sense of and engage with cultural artifacts. In an era where the sheer volume of available content overwhelms individual capacity for interpretation, contextualizers step in to synthesize, curate and create meaning. As content proliferates, the challenge isn’t accessing cultural works but understanding how they fit into larger narratives and why they matter. There is simply too much content, context makes salient which deserves our attention.

Works of art were being contextualized before by friends, curators, record store employees, grandiloquent critics, etc. Your friend’s favorite line in a song became a hook for your own appreciation of it. Seeing how people reacted to a song’s pivotal moment at a house party made clear the song’s high point. Hearing a professor rave about a shot in a movie made you lean in when you watched it. Often, you developed your own unique appreciation for something which you then shared with peers. These are all great examples of organic contextualization. Yet this scarcity of context also illuminates the dangers of para-content. When contextualizers wield disproportionate influence, there is a risk that their exegesis becomes prescriptive rather than suggestive.

The tyranny of the contextualizer online is their constant and immovable presence between the reader and the text, the listener and the music, the viewer and the film. We now reach for context before engaging with the content. When my first interaction with a song is through TikTok reactions, I no longer encounter the work as it is, on my own. It comes with context juxtaposed, pre-packaged. This removes the public’s ability to construct, even if for a moment, their own unique horizons. This creates a paradox: while contextualizers help audiences navigate the abundance of content, they narrow the interpretive field, reducing the audience’s autonomy in engaging with the work. In her study of the Midrash, Gafney reminds us that the exegesis also leaves the door for the believer to answer questions themselves. I love context, but there is a looming danger in its omnipresence. No more reaction videos! We must resist the lure of context and, once again, feel and think for ourselves. Do you like “TV Off” or have you just seen a thousand memes and videos about it?