Hi, this is Wayne again with a topic “The Problem with YouTube Rewind!”.
Hey, what’s up guys, I’m Kip EHD here YouTube rewind every year, the biggest celebration of of the top stuff on YouTube that year, the biggest creators, the best videos, the memes everything at least. We thought a lot of people would ask me about this. You may have noticed about a week ago: YouTube rewind 2018 was uploaded and it’s not exactly doing ha. In fact, it’s currently in just a few days, the second most disliked video ever uploaded of all time, first place being Justin Bieber’s baby, and it’s on pace to pass that probably pretty soon so the most outwardly hated video ever uploaded to the site and it’s all Part of this bigger overwhelming shift in sentiment about YouTube rewind from the good old days of 2013, 2014, 2015 till now, but why? Why is this happening? That’S the question. Naturally, I think the problem with YouTube rewind, at least as I see it, is pretty simple.
Actually youtubers and creators and audiences see it as one thing and YouTube who’s in charge of making it sees it as something completely different. So youtubers like me, and I’ve been in YouTube, rewind, actually the past couple years now and creators and and all of us tend to think of YouTube rewind as this big celebration of looking back at the biggest youtubers, the biggest YouTube events, things that happened on the Site in the past year and rewind, just looking back at it all, makes sense right, and that is what it started out as actually YouTube. Rewind 2011. The first one is literally rebeccablack counting down the top 10 most viewed videos on YouTube that year, ending in number one Friday, hip-fire Rebecca Black. So this kind of established – it’s like the whole point – is to rewind and look back at with the biggest things on YouTube were and year after year. Since then, they’ve sort of expanded it to include more YouTube moments, more memes, more references and it sort of became.
Like this honor to be included in YouTube rewind now this all makes sense, but at a certain point, YouTube started, seeing it differently, so as YouTube as a site starts to grow and expand. You guys see from the other side too this with the scale and the massive changes they. Obviously our company, that has to make money and the way they do, that is by pairing advertisers to content. So they started seeing YouTube rewind as a place to showcase all the best stuff that happens on YouTube for advertisers and so now, fast-forward to this era of brand safety and post ad pocalypse.
And all these things it’s become more important than ever for that relationship between YouTube and advertisers to remain strong and for them to show the best stuff on the platform to those advertisers. So YouTube rewind turned into this, like hey check out all these advertiser friendly things for you to spend your money on all these super clean creators, and these late-night show hosts and all these things that you want your ads next to you, so YouTube rewind. In a way, just turned into a giant ad for YouTube, that’s the truth, so the Delta between what youtubers and creators and audiences want rewind to be and what YouTube it keeps making is clearly why people are so upset. Everyone has good reason to be mad about you know big youtubers or moments that they wished were in rewind for 2018, because they were big on the platform, but they weren’t in rewind, PewDiePie, Shane Dawson, the ksi versus Logan, Paul fight, just for example, some big things That happened, they were big in 2018 on YouTube and they weren’t in rewind. But yet then you have Will Smith Trevor Noah John Oliver, all not really youtubers I mean, Will Smith, I guess at this point sort of, but also not all, that really big in 2018. Specifically, but yet they’re all in YouTube: rewind 2018, for some reason, that reason being that that looks pretty good to advertisers and then to top it all off, I think, generally, the style of YouTube rewind has been sort of difficult sort of problematic. I think, even if they did include all these things, that everyone wants to see, the video was just it’s just kind of hard to watch, and this is just coming from me. I’M just one guy and I happen to make videos but YouTube rewinds not made by one guy. It’S a production team, so it’s made every year by a company called portal. A production company and YouTube is the client and they just try to shove.
Everything into this video every year – and I think that’s the mistake, like take a look back. I look backwards at YouTube. Rewind. 2011, the first one. It’S two minutes long, it’s Rebecca Black talking through the hits of the year simple. You know, there’s there’s a little montage in the middle of some great moments: the memes, the references it’s great, but it’s one creator and one song levels by Avicii and then 2012 the next year.
So this is the first year they actually brought people in and creators. In to shoot new content, instead of just bringing in viral videos from that year and whole video is a Gangnam style remix. So if you remember gangnams to hell the whole thing, it’s four minutes long and actually, if you look at the credits this photo, is everyone featured in YouTube? Rewind, 2012: it’s simple! You could catch everything. You could appreciate everything.
This was maybe peak rewind as far as actual video style. If you ask me so, then next year YouTube rewind 2013. This is the year the first year they tried to do a lot. It’S a mash-up style.
It’S six minutes long and those six songs in the DJ earworm mashup of the year. There are 56 creators, there’s also Cookie Monster and Jimmy Kimmel, but the rest were creators, and this is the first one that was produced by portal a and, if I had to guess this is also the first year they started sort of using rewind to share with Advertisers, I think we, you know the community sort of gave this one a pass, because we liked it. It was the sort of first one of this style felt original still felt like a sort of a celebration of rewinding and looking back at YouTube. Then there was rewind 2014 again, a mashup style, 95 creators.
There are six songs, this time and lots of fast motion and cutting to show more things. Just it felt like they’re, trying to shove more things in each time, just absolute chaos and then so on and so forth to YouTube rewind 2017, which is just that the peak of it all this is last year, there’s a bunch of late-night talk-show hosts a bunch Of creators, a bunch of traditional celebrities, etc, it’s seven minutes long and a video is just flying. It’S just this barrage of everything. So when I was 20 18 I’m actually, I was talking a bit with the director as we were shooting it in LA this year, and we were actually talking a bit about how this year’s rewind was gon na be different. Actually, before I even went, we were on a call about it, but, like they talked about you know this year there were hundreds 300 plus creators. Last year, this we were gon na cut it down to a hundred we’re listening to the comments.
This is the first time we’re gon na actually give creators a voice in rewind, so it kind of felt like they were getting something there. It felt like they understood that they have to cut back a little bit. The last one, which was the first one, actually seemed to get a bit of a negative reception, wasn’t sustainable.
They got to cut it down and actually fun fact. I was told again: this was before we even shot this. I was told that they were planning on enjoying it with Will Smith and when they met with him about what he would have in rewind. Apparently he independently said fortnight and my name mkbhd. I I can’t verify this. I want to believe, but apparently that was his own suggestion – hey we’ll if you’re watching this, I would love to collab. But apparently that’s that’s his own idea, but then I get there to the shoot it’s in LA I’m there all day for we’re shooting for 12 to 14 hours, with a bunch of other creators who were awesome. We did a bunch of takes of jumping out of the fort night bus, a bunch of different expressions with everyone on the bus. Everyone has different lines and different things they’re doing towards the camera.
I did a stunt for a couple of hours. So yes, me, falling out of the bus at the beginning of the video was actually me harnessed in costume on, like a zip line, actually falling past the camera, so that happened and there’s a whole clip on someone’s hard drive somewhere back at portal. A of me like landing in the bus, realizing where I am at, like looking down at my costume understanding that I’m on a bus and the bus is flying, and this is the fort night bus and Will Smith put me here and we’re gon na have to Jump is this what you wanted? It was all of that, but then the actual clip got cut down to this. I would want fortnight and marques Brownlee. Is this what you wanted? You know who I would have asked for now? Is it and like that’s, a cool clip and everything I loved watching it, but but as someone who is there, that clip didn’t convey the whole point of this shoot, it’s just kind of all loss. You barely realize what’s happening, you maybe take some of it in and then it’s on to the next scene and that’s how it is with every single clip, it’s just the montage style all over again, I’m sure.
If you talk to other youtubers, you know Casey Liza. Other people who were in like these four second clips, they were probably shooting for a whole day with much more in mind and it all still ended up with YouTube. Rewind 2018. This chaotic barrage of clips that’s just really hard to watch, so I think the the problem with this mashup style rewind, video in 2018, is you’re still making it look like you’re trying to include everything when you’re also clearly still not including everything so in conclusion, YouTube.
Rewinds problem is it’s trying to appeal to advertisers because that’s what YouTube kind of feels like they have to do by excluding any even little bit of a controversial thing that happened in the last year, but in the mash-up style they’re still, including hundreds of things. Every single little thing they can in an effort to try to make everyone happy, but the more things you include, the more obvious and well-defined those exclusions are so YouTube. You can’t make everyone happy, I think like if anyone could possibly fix rewind or make it better for next year. I think the change you have to make is you got to leave some stuff out. You can leave me out, I don’t mind. Obviously, I’ve been in it for a couple years and I love being a part of it.
I learn a lot when I’m on the set of the big of production like that, and it feels good to represent this sort of tech community on YouTube. That, I think, is kind of underrepresented, but you’re gon na have to leave some stuff out. I really think they should embrace cutting stuff out and hand, selecting the sort of couple of things that really popped and represented YouTube that year and sort of a throwback to what made the previous YouTube rewind so great, just my two cents either way. I hope that video helps sort of understand my perspective as someone who was part of the production, I know a lot of people who were in it aren’t really saying much about it, but that’s pretty much it.
So thank you for watching and I’ll catch. You guys in the next one a tech video. I promise bass .