YouTube Rewind, a year-end compilation video of chosen content deemed to be the most popular in the preceding 12 months, was released in 2010. YouTube Rewind was continuously popular, with videos reaching or exceeding 100 million views on a regular basis.
YouTube Rewind has developed into complex partnerships with some of the platform’s most prominent personalities over the years. A lot of content providers began to release their own Rewind videos, many of which mocked or parodied YouTube’s version.
But that all changed in 2018, when that year’s YouTube Rewind video became the most hated video in YouTube history, with even the CEO’s children calling it “cringey.” YouTube has been criticized for pandering to media and marketers rather than really displaying the year’s most outstanding content.
As a result, in 2019, the compilation video showed the platform’s most popular content, based on data gathered throughout the year. YouTube also published a list of the most popular videos, separated into categories including Most Viewed Games, Most Liked Beauty Videos, and Most Viewed Creators.
On the 10th anniversary of YouTube Rewind, a spokesman for the platform revealed that the yearly feature is being phased out permanently. Instead, YouTube will leave year-end rewind films to creators, who will “uniquely capture the year from their viewpoints.”
YouTube will publicize the new age of rewind videos but will not support or subsidize them. Instead, the spokesman stated that YouTube would continue to release an annual list in the same style as in 2019, avoiding any direct negative backlash concerning the material or the way it is compiled.
YouTube Rewind was canceled in 2020, citing the then-current world circumstances as the cause. The firm explained in a November 2020 statement that “2020 has been different.” And it doesn’t feel right to keep acting as if it isn’t.” Many people were not surprised because 2020 was a year of turmoil and cancellations, but it was believed that YouTube Rewind would return in 2021 along with everything else.
YouTube hasn’t abandoned its yearly celebrations of the platform’s content entirely. The representative alluded to a year-end interactive event, but no additional information were provided. The YouTube Streamy Awards, which are presented each year to celebrate the finest in online video, including acting, directing, writing, and producing, will also be held. The first Streamy Awards took place in 2009, and the ceremony is generally held towards the end of the year, between October and mid-December.
