Well, we all know where this is going to kick off the start of August. Reaction videos and reaction channels have been around for quite some time now and is continuing to grow in massive amounts. It's very sad that once one thing comes around, everyone does it so their super observant. Most of them are very self-entitled (for the ones that I've seen at least) but others are quite genuine. That really isn't the case for TheFineBros. You can tell from the stern look on their faces that it really wasn't going to end well with the community going after them for one big mistake. Literally TheFineBros is considered to be one of the worst channels of all time and with it, that shows.
TheFineBros formerly known as Benny Fine and Rafi Fine started their account on June 4, 2007 (way back in the Golden Era days of YouTube). They uploaded their first video on January 24, 2008, with the title "LOST Parody - Star Wars." My guess is the reason for the video was all about what it would be like if LOST had a Star Wars episode? I don't really know. The react videos on their channel as far as I'm concern is from 2010 with the first one being title "Kids React Extra - Jake." This eventually sparked the reaction video trend as they still continue to upload reaction videos from their series ranging from Teens React, Elders React, Kids React, Adults React, Parents React and so on. Later on in the YouTube life, they also change their channel name from FineBros to REACT. The trend is still ongoing to this day.
The Fall:
Before I start with this, I want to say that I don't understand the concept of reaction channels. I know that people like them and all but you're literally watching a person react to a video. I've also seen most people getting in trouble stealing content without permission, even if it's under the copyright disclaimer 107. Anyways I'm kind of getting off topic here. On January 26, 2016, they uploaded a video (shown above, since deleted but reuploaded) and created a program called React world where they were trademarking and licensing the word 'react' to let creators create their own react series. What people soon realized was the trademarking for word so for people who were unafiliated with FBE were essentially prohibiting the word 'react'.
On top of this, they had promise not to take any revenue or to issue copyright strikes to which they did behind the scenes. Users like 8Bit Eric got hit with it but other YouTuber's like Penguinz0, AlphaOmegaSin, ReviewTechUSA and several others made a rant about it. This created a huge amount of backlash from the community and at the time, lost a total of 675,000 subscribers. Meanwhile news outlets were catching onto this story.
Shortly after on February 1, 2016, TheFineBros uploaded an apology video (shown above and was taken down but reuploaded) to which they discuss React World and the trademark behind it. Apparently, there was a bit of confusion behind the trademarked word 'react'. Here's some of the apology quotes I wrote from the video:
"First and foremost, were sorry for confusing people by using terminology like our react format. We were never trying to say that every video or some of our reacts or something else is something that we were trying to control. When we referenced licensing the react format, we only meant OUR specific series not the overall genre of reaction videos, we do not own the genre."
"Were creators at heart and those who know us personally know how passionate we are about trying to help creators and React World is meant to be an extension of that, with us simply providing resources and tools to anyone who wants to go down this path and creating one of our series with direct support from us."
To be perfectly honest this was not a sincere apology. The fact that they completely got away with this without realizing that it was a terrible idea is beyond me. This is also another reason not to trust your favorite creators in the actions they depicted. TheFineBros is the perfect example of when creating new things turns into a turmoil and with that, it shows.
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