With 2021 rolling around to a finish, YouTube decides to share the top performing content across the platform, taking a look back at how the year went.
Hey, anyone remember Rewind? If you say no and are under 20, I honestly understand since the last time anyone saw the mere mention of Rewind was a few years ago. If you’re above that age and don’t remember it, I see that you’re feigning ignorance and sympathize with you regardless. Honestly, Rewind 2018 ended up being the biggest and perhaps most expensive display of disconnect between executives and the general community when it comes to understanding what everyone wants. The YouTube community wanted nothing more than an avenue to celebrate their favorite internet personalities interacting with each other in a quirky music mashup that displayed trends from that year. What they got was Will Smith and a video pandering very heavily to the top most billed stars, feeling like exactly what some analyst looking at charts and ratings would imagine the people liked. 2019 just saw a top ten list of videos, 2020 saw nothing since the pandemic rolled on by, and 2021 seems to very much be the same. Shame, really, since the early renditions of Rewind, despite not having aged perfectly, still hold us very well as time capsules of what YouTube used to be like back then.
Then again, an annual report is surely just as fun, right guys? No? Well, then, let’s just quickly go through the numbers and wrap this up. The Top Ten listings webpage has been created in a way that allows users to switch through 17 different regions, with content changing accordingly. The headings covered include Top 10 Trending, Breakout Stars, Music Videos, and Shorts Creators. For our purposes, we’ll mostly stick to the USA list, but will be mentioning highlights from other regions as well.
Mr. Beast has had an incredibly lucrative year, landing on the top spot on both the Top Trending video of 2021, labelled “I Spent 50 Hours Buried Alive”, and the Top Creator listings. It’s been a wacky year for the crazy, multi-million-dollar scale videos that the man makes. His endeavors have led to major charity runs as well as environmental projects such as TeamTrees and TeamSeas, all geared towards making our planet a bit safer and more pollution free. The content creator has also made it to the top ten list in many other regions, with notable exceptions being India and Russia (although the latter’s top ten does seem to have a copycat present, so maybe that counts as a point).
Music videos seem to be very subjective across the board for all regions, but the Weeknd’s “Save Your Tears” has been making the rounds across multiple different regions. It’s marked as number two in the USA’s list of top music videos, but deserves recognition for breaking barriers. Another such video to do so was the controversial “Montero” video by Lil Nas X that, despite all the hate it received, was also lauded by many different human rights groups and LGBTQ+ supporters for being very unapologetically gay.
While absolutely no one is surprised by Mr. Beast making it to the top creators listing for multiple regions, another breakout star making her presence known on the platform is Kallmekris, more well known for her lucrative TikTok career. Moving from platform such as Vine and TikTok to YouTube isn’t always a smooth event, and often goes wrong for creators. However, Kris is making content that seems to happily vibe with both her audiences.
YouTube Shorts is a format that’s proving incredibly lucrative for the platform right now, and its creators are accordingly getting recognized by the higher-ups. While lists are, again, very subjective to the respective regions, stars such as Zhong and SeanDoesMagic seem to be gaining a lot of traction and popularity across multiple platforms.
Read next: Influencer Marketing Trends and Predictions 2022
Hey, anyone remember Rewind? If you say no and are under 20, I honestly understand since the last time anyone saw the mere mention of Rewind was a few years ago. If you’re above that age and don’t remember it, I see that you’re feigning ignorance and sympathize with you regardless. Honestly, Rewind 2018 ended up being the biggest and perhaps most expensive display of disconnect between executives and the general community when it comes to understanding what everyone wants. The YouTube community wanted nothing more than an avenue to celebrate their favorite internet personalities interacting with each other in a quirky music mashup that displayed trends from that year. What they got was Will Smith and a video pandering very heavily to the top most billed stars, feeling like exactly what some analyst looking at charts and ratings would imagine the people liked. 2019 just saw a top ten list of videos, 2020 saw nothing since the pandemic rolled on by, and 2021 seems to very much be the same. Shame, really, since the early renditions of Rewind, despite not having aged perfectly, still hold us very well as time capsules of what YouTube used to be like back then.
Then again, an annual report is surely just as fun, right guys? No? Well, then, let’s just quickly go through the numbers and wrap this up. The Top Ten listings webpage has been created in a way that allows users to switch through 17 different regions, with content changing accordingly. The headings covered include Top 10 Trending, Breakout Stars, Music Videos, and Shorts Creators. For our purposes, we’ll mostly stick to the USA list, but will be mentioning highlights from other regions as well.
Mr. Beast has had an incredibly lucrative year, landing on the top spot on both the Top Trending video of 2021, labelled “I Spent 50 Hours Buried Alive”, and the Top Creator listings. It’s been a wacky year for the crazy, multi-million-dollar scale videos that the man makes. His endeavors have led to major charity runs as well as environmental projects such as TeamTrees and TeamSeas, all geared towards making our planet a bit safer and more pollution free. The content creator has also made it to the top ten list in many other regions, with notable exceptions being India and Russia (although the latter’s top ten does seem to have a copycat present, so maybe that counts as a point).
Music videos seem to be very subjective across the board for all regions, but the Weeknd’s “Save Your Tears” has been making the rounds across multiple different regions. It’s marked as number two in the USA’s list of top music videos, but deserves recognition for breaking barriers. Another such video to do so was the controversial “Montero” video by Lil Nas X that, despite all the hate it received, was also lauded by many different human rights groups and LGBTQ+ supporters for being very unapologetically gay.
While absolutely no one is surprised by Mr. Beast making it to the top creators listing for multiple regions, another breakout star making her presence known on the platform is Kallmekris, more well known for her lucrative TikTok career. Moving from platform such as Vine and TikTok to YouTube isn’t always a smooth event, and often goes wrong for creators. However, Kris is making content that seems to happily vibe with both her audiences.
YouTube Shorts is a format that’s proving incredibly lucrative for the platform right now, and its creators are accordingly getting recognized by the higher-ups. While lists are, again, very subjective to the respective regions, stars such as Zhong and SeanDoesMagic seem to be gaining a lot of traction and popularity across multiple platforms.
Read next: Influencer Marketing Trends and Predictions 2022