![]() ![]() Advertisers fled.Īs a result of this fallout, there was immense pressure on the platform to make YouTube Rewind 2017 as brand-friendly as ever. Then Swedish gamer Felix Kjellberg, otherwise known as PewDiePie and the platform’s most-subscribed creator at the time, made anti-Semitic comments and defiantly sparred with the Wall Street Journal. This change impacted the earnings of some of YouTube’s most prolific and beloved creators, who watched their revenues drop as their trust in YouTube dwindled. To placate these brands, YouTube offered new filtering options that excluded wide swaths of content from running alongside ads. In 2017, YouTube faced an existential crisis: the "adpocalypse," a platform-altering debacle in which advertisers pulled their spots after discovering that they sometimes ran alongside extremist and hate content. The number of featured creators ballooned, as did the inclusion of late night talk show hosts and mainstream celebrities.īy 2016, the video opened with The Rock and closed with James Corden’s Carpool Karaoke. That often meant its most colorful creators were sidelined in favor of sanitized alternatives. As YouTube evolved into an industry juggernaut and an advertising machine, Rewind transformed from a true year-in-review into a showcase of YouTube’s shiniest, least offensive elements, a commercial for the platform itself. Every year, the budget for Rewind grew bigger, the production slicker, the references more robust. It was celebratory, self-aware, and silly. Initially a simple "top videos" list in 2010, by 2012, YouTube had debuted the Rewind format that would become standard: a recreation of the year’s top music videos, memes, and moments in vignettes that featured creators themselves. Rewind was originally a celebration of all the things that made YouTube great, a joyous community year-in-review. Instead, it became a symbol of how YouTube had lost its way, jumping the shark to the tune of "Baby Shark." The internet burned it to the ground, making it the most-disliked video in YouTube history within a week. A sore spot for creators and fans alike, 2018’s Rewind was the platform’s last earnest attempt at a year-end video that celebrated the creator community while also wooing advertisers. YouTube officially canceled Rewind in October, but the format died years ago. YouTube clarified that Escape2021 was not intended to "replace" Rewind, to which I say: tomayto, tomahto. Hopefully whatever YouTube does to replace its big year-end celebration ends up a little less controversial going forward.This year, YouTube is trying something new: a 24-hour, gamified three-part interactive livestream called "Escape2021." Like YouTube Rewind, the ill-fated annual video event that preceded it, Escape2021 celebrated the year’s top content trends and featured some of the platform’s most popular creators, as well as major artists like BTS, Blackpink, Doja Cat, and Olivia Rodrigo. ![]() Still, whether well-received or endlessly dunked on, Rewind videos have been a big part of YouTube's culture for the past decade. Later 2019's video attempted to skirt controversy entirely by shifting its format from the big-budget mashup of YouTubers from years past to a more ordinary (and boring) list of clips of most-watched creators, videos, and trends. 2018's video was viciously panned by the YouTube community (to this day, it remains the most disliked video ever posted to the platform).Ĭreators argued that the company was shifting focus from the "real community" including controversial creators like Logan Paul and PewDiePie, in favour of more advertiser-friendly choices. And it doesn't feel right to carry on as if it weren't."Īlso, Rewind had already been struggling long before the pandemic. YouTube will also be relying on creators on its platform to fill the gap, with a spokesperson telling that it'll "continue to be inspiring to see the myriad of ways the most creative content producers in the world, our YouTube creators, encapsulate the end of the year in their video recaps, as YouTube retires its own Rewind video."Īs per The Verge, this news of YouTube cancelling Rewind permanently isn't a big surprise, as the company already took off 2020, citing the difficulties of the year: "2020 has been different. Video sharing platform YouTube has confirmed that YouTube Rewind, the company's annual year-end round-up of trends, creators, memes, and the most popular videos on the site, has been cancelled for good.Īccording to The Verge, instead, YouTube has stated it will "refocus our energies on celebrating you and the trends that make YouTube with a different and updated kind of experience," although the company didn't elaborate further on what it'll be replacing Rewind with. ![]()
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