YouTube today released the 2018 edition of Rewind, its Year-in-Review performance art piece, in which it acknowledged the major trends on the platform. And no surprise, it was full of references to Fortnite, K-pop, and, of course, Drake.
If you’ve checked any of the videos in the Trending tab in the past three or four months, you’ll probably recognize at least a few of the names: Ninja, the Try Guys, Lilly Singh, Liza Koshy, Safiya Nygaard, Marques Brownlee… Admittedly, the list of creators featured in the video was small compared with the Rewinds of years’ past, and the absence of some was felt keenly, if the video’s dislike ratio and the comments section is anything to go by.
The music, always a highlight of the Rewind, is also a mashup of recognizable hits, like Cardi B’s “I Like It,” Panic! at the Disco’s “High Hopes,” Drake’s “In My Feelings,” (and yeah, the YouTubers did the dance) and… oh hello again BTS, fancy seeing you again.
YouTube also released info on its top trending music videos of the year — no surprise the vast majority of them are Spanish language, considering that was the case last year. I was a little surprised not to see some K-pop on there, given it was big enough to be referenced several times in the video itself. Though the top video on the non-music list was Kylie Jenner’s admittedly adorable “To Our Daughter.”
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The video does kind of steamroll past its most important point: about midway through the video, several YouTubers stop and give credit to other creators who have raised money for charity or education, and to spotlight creators who give voice to oft-overlooked communities, such as drag or single mothers. If the whole video had been about that, I’d have been okay with it — but I get it, that’s not what Rewind is generally about.
If you want to see all the trends in YouTube’s year in review, you can check them out here.
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