
Measuring by dislikes, YouTube started to struggle with "Rewind" in 2014 or 2015, when the number of dislikes on the videos started to become substantial. It's very possible that there is no perfect "Rewind," or at least no "Rewind" that can summon the energy of the 2012 version – because that version of YouTube doesn't exist anymore. Two days after that happened I remember we were like, 'I guess we have to do this again next year.'" "It was a huge surprise when that video was so successful. "These things were huge for so many people and they were big pop culture moments but there was nothing celebrating them, or getting them reflected back to anybody," Allocca said. He also noted that the original 2012 "Rewind" production process echoed a community that, at the time, wasn't considered mainstream yet. "People would always say, 'I don't know who these people are' if they were from India or Brazil or France or whatever." "The stature of a lot of our top creators has increased dramatically in the six years in between," he told Insider. As the platform became significantly larger, the "stars" of YouTube grew from a handful of ultra-recognizable names like Jenna Marbles and Smosh to thousands of popular creators with huge fanbases, spread out all around the world.
#Youtube rewind 2015 series
The top comments on YouTube's 'Rewind' for 2019 quickly became a series of this comment copied and pasted over and over.īased on popular tweets in the #YouTubeRewind hashtag, it seems like a lot of viewers long for the well-liked "Rewind" videos of the early 2010s, starting with the first "Rewind" to exhibit major production value, 2012's " Rewind YouTube Style," which parodied "Gangnam Style" and "Call Me Maybe."Īllocca pointed out that the YouTube of 2012 is very different from the YouTube of today. The comment section quickly morphed into the same text copy and pasted over and over again, proving that, even if deprived of the opportunity to meme, the YouTube community will invent its own way to meme. It's for you." Reactions to the video were still overwhelmingly negative – but for very different reasons than last yearĪ few hours after the video uploaded, it had accrued over 300,000 dislikes, with a ratio of about 3 dislikes for every 2 likes. "The fact is, no single video will ever truly represent someone's unique experience with YouTube, that's why it's so popular and why so many people use it. "I hope that people will appreciate the attempt to respond to a lot of the feedback they had," he said.

At the time he spoke to Insider, the video hadn't yet debuted, and Allocca said he had "no idea" how YouTube fans would respond. He says that both the production-heavy iterations of "Rewind" and this year's were complicated, but for different reasons. "And that leads you down the path of 'Let's use the actual clips that people were watching' and 'Let's use the actual data to measure the reactions people had to things.'" "The team sat down and said 'What would we need to do to create something that would be as reflective as possible of the year.' Like, 'What would be the most accurate representation of the experience that people had on YouTube this year?'" Allocca, who has worked on every "Rewind," told Insider. "We definitely heard that feedback loud and clear and decided the video should really focus on the year on YouTube as accurately as possible."įrom 2012 to 2018, YouTube's annual "Rewind" video was a staged production involving YouTubers on different sets parodying the most popular songs, trends, dances, and videos of the year.īefore that, there was a 2011 "Rewind" starring Rebecca Black, as the "Friday" singer reviewed the most popular videos of the year – which is similar to the 2019 rewind, which is "a montage of clips from top videos, channels, and moments of the year that's just really based on the data, including views, subscriptions, likes, social mentions, and more," according to Allocca.


"The real central issue is that a lot of people felt like it just didn't represent their authentic experience of YouTube during the year," Kevin Allocca, the Head of Culture and Trends for YouTube, told Insider.

It often indicates a user profile.Īfter last year's YouTube "Rewind" became the most-disliked video of all time on the platform, with more than 16 million dislikes, the team of people who develop the end of the year wrap-up video decided it was time to change the format. Account icon An icon in the shape of a person's head and shoulders.
