YouTube publishes its always controversial Rewind with a review of the most-watched and most liked videos, trends, and creators of 2019.
YouTube returns to face criticism for its YouTube Rewind, the annual video that publishes the platform as a tribute to the most important creators of the year. In 2019, and after the harsh criticism of the last Rewind, YouTube has preferred to review the most-watched creators of the year with a very relevant distinction: goodbye to corporations.
The emergence of large media companies has been one of the most prominent topics on YouTube in recent years, better reflected than anyone by YouTubers. PewDiePie and his struggle for the throne with the channel with more subscribers with T-Series, a great studio of Indian musical production. PewDiePie ended up losing that battle, but the Swedish won the support of the YouTube community, one that massively supports independent creators who have felt sidelined by YouTube. And not only for initiatives such as the Rewind but also for new advertising policies that have harmed the economic gains of many YouTubers.
The Rewind of this 2019 tries to repair the bridges between YouTube and the community giving higher priority to these independent creators. In previous years, the startup portal he had undertaken super productions filmed in several countries, with a multitude of YouTubers involved and highlighting the most relevant trends of each cycle, although discarding creators and controversial phenomena. The idea was to go more in line with a corporate image that would not anger the advertisers. Instead, he enraged hundreds of thousands of spectators, who branded the previous Rewind as white, comfortable and, what is worse, to produce someone else’s shame. Although the real problem was how indifferent the Rewind was to what the community that has managed to bring the platform to the point of popularity in which it now represents.
Rewind 2019 opts for a low-risk alternative route. The video of this edition collects rankings of the creators and the most viewed and most liked videos of the year. But the lists of the most popular videos and creators have a couple of relevant asterisks. First, “the results have been reviewed and filtered to ensure the relevance of the Rewind’s key demographic audience (historically, over 16 years old).” And second, from YouTube they have also ensured that the focus was on independent creators, hence the exclusion of channels belonging to media companies and musical artists (and their record companies). Music has its rankings.
The result is a list that helps focus on the most prominent creators of 2019, as well as the videos that have marked the conversation on the platform in the last year. Next, a review of the two rankings of Rewind 2019 starring independent creators and their videos:
1. Mr. Beast, “Make this video the most liked video on YouTube”
YouTuber MrBeast, whose real name is Jimmy Donaldson, became famous in early 2017 when he posted a video counting up to 100,000 for 40 hours in a row. In the last two years, his most watched videos include extravagant challenges such as filling a friend’s yard with 100 million orbeez and donating millions of dollars to gamers during their live broadcasts.
The video of Donaldson with more likes in this 2019 tries to emulate what was achieved by the egg of Instagram records. At the beginning of the year, advertising creative got the photo of an egg to get more like it than the photo with the record so far, that of Kylie Jenner announcing the birth of her daughter Stormi. MrBeast proposed the same thing with a video in which he and his friends competed in the Egg Olympics. And he got it. His proposal is the non-music video with the most likes of the entire YouTube story.
2. PewDiePie, “Marzia & Felix – Wedding”
The Swedish YouTuber’s wedding was one of the events of the year on the platform. It was PewDiePie who held the previous record of non-music video with the most likes on the platform before the arrival of MrBeast. With almost 5 million likes, the video of Felix marrying Italian Marzia stays far from MrBeast, but it helps to highlight a very positive year for the Swedish after a season almost expelled to ostracism at the media level and Youtube rewind.
3. Whindersson Nunes, “The day I saw Blindly “
Youtuber and comedian Whindersson Nunes is one of the most influential people in Brazil among young people. In his video with more likes of the year, about 4 million, Nunes imagines what would happen in Brazil if the same phenomenon occurred as in Blind, the Sandra Bullock movie for Netflix in which people commit suicide when they observe visually unknown forces.
4. Black Gryph0n, “1 guy, 54 voices”
Musician and dubbing artist Gabriel Brown, known on the internet as Black Gryph0n, achieved one of the most viral videos of the year imitating the voices of up to 54 famous singers. Among the highlights, Frank Sinatra, Michael Jackson, Drake, Bruno Mars, and Shakira.
5. Nilson Izaias Papinho, “I’ve managed to make Slime”
A Brazilian elder known as Nilson Izaias achieved his viral phenomenon by making a homemade Slime. Slime is the name with which Mattel’s toy was known that in Spain has known better fame with Flubber, the green viscous substance that had its film with Robin Williams. Izaias had tried to make a homemade Slime in other videos but without much success. The delivery in which it does achieve a remarkable reach when Brazilian television personalities echoed it on their social networks. The video accumulates almost 3 million likes.
6. Seth Everman, “How to make ‘Billie Eilish’ bad guy”
Seth Everman is a Youtuber with few videos in his history, but the reinterpretation he made last April of the song ‘bad guy’ by Billie Eilish was a bombshell that went viral on several social networks at the same time. Everman hit the spot recreating one of the most played songs of the year through a pan, a Nintendo64 and its synthesizer, among other objects. The video has almost 3 million likes right now.
7. James Charles, “No more lies”
It’s impossible to understand 2019 on YouTube without meeting James Charles. The 20-year-old makeup artist is one of the most prominent figures in the YouTube world for a while now thanks to her makeup videos. Until recently, his collaborations with other prominent YouTubers such as Emma Chamberlain and the Dolan twins had catapulted him to the top … until a resounding fall. Charles and also makeup artist Tati Westbrook starred in one of the most dramatic give and take of the year after both exchanged accusations of lies, betrayals and even sexual harassment.
The scandal was started by Westbrook, who went viral with a video in which he said he felt betrayed by Charles. The 37-year-old woman claimed to have been a mentor to Charles and portrayed the young man as a manipulative figure only guided by ambition. In the following days, Charles began losing millions of subscribers to an unprecedented magnitude on the platform. His video issuing an apology was cause for mockery for days and it was not until the publication of “No more lies” that Charles managed to flip the narrative. That video accumulates more than 2.4 million likes, although it also has 600,000 dislikes, making clear the controversy caused by the scandal in the YouTube makeup community.
8. Andymation, “My biggest flipbook ever”
Animation channels have gained a lot of popularity on YouTube in recent years with very different formats. Fiction, parody and even political commentary are among the genres addressed by animated YouTubers who have been successful on YouTube. The case of Andymation, led by artist Andrew Bailey, is much more specific: it is an animation channel by folioscopes. That is drawings in motion thanks to the rapid turn of the pages of a book. Bailey also makes stop-motion animations, but the video that has entered the 2019 ranking is one in which he makes his biggest folioscope to date – and has been doing it since he was a child. The result is spectacular and already has more than 2.5 million likes.
9. A4, “We buy everything we can carry from the store”
The Russian Youtuber A4 has a channel of challenges and jokes that stars alongside his friends. The video he has managed to put in the ranking is a challenge in which he and his friends have to buy everything they can in a store as long as they don’t throw anything on the floor before paying. If they drop anything, they lose the opportunity for their friends to pay for it.
Just like MrBeast’s the A4 video is a good reflection of the kind of content that works across any border, especially among minors. There are many examples of YouTubers making very similar content. The American YouTubers Jake and Logan Paul are well aware of the repercussions of overdoing their videos, whether they go over the account with heavy jokes or recording a corpse in a forest in Japan.
10. Shane Dawson, “Conspiracy Theories with Shane Dawson”
Between 2017 and 2018, Shane Dawson became one of the essential YouTube figures for three documentary series that he made about other YouTubers: Tana Mongeau, Jake Paul, and Jeffree Star. The radiographs that Dawson made of those characters through interviews generated dozens of millions of visits and several trending topics on Twitter, confirming the ability of Youtuber to generate conversation beyond YouTube.
This year, Dawson returned to recover his passion for conspiracy theories by exploring numerous of them in two different episodes, one of which has sneaked into this ranking. When touching such delicate topics in the middle of the fake news era, the videos had a good ration of controversy, especially regarding the Chuck E. Cheese pizza chain and its supposed recycling of unconsumed pizzas.
