YouTube Rewind 2018 is the most disliked video on YouTube – but why?
YouTube Rewind 2018 may not be going over very well with the YouTube. This year’s Rewind, which is a video made every year by YouTube that is supposed to highlight YouTube culture, is now the most disliked video on the website. It has more than 10 million dislikes beating Justin Bieber’s 2010 song “Baby,” which has just under 10 million dislikes. While it took Bieber eight years to rack up that many dislikes, YouTube Rewind achieved the notorious status in just over a week.
It is pretty amazing. YouTube Rewind illustrates how advertisers can love a video created by YouTube’s marketing team and the same video hated by the YouTube community.
Since YouTube published the video on December 6th, content creators such as Marques Brownlee have addressed the controversy head-on. While other YouTubers created their versions of Rewind to something, they believed as more authentic.
Why do people dislike YouTube Rewind 2018 so much?
Arguably the dislike could be connected to the platform’s creator culture, and the image YouTube would like to present.
“I think the problem with YouTube Rewind, at least how I see it, is pretty simple actually,” Brownlee said in a video. “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.”
The History of YouTube Rewind
YouTube Rewind first started in 2011. Rebecca Black of the viral “Friday” video fame narrated the video. The entire Rewind was a breakdown of the ten most-watched videos of the year. It was a highlight compilation of what was popular, without glossing over controversial events that may have occurred during the year.
From 2011 to 2014, YouTube Rewind featured videos of their most significant moments, their biggest influencer content creators and memes admired by the community. However, by 2015, YouTube grew to a vast entertainment industry platform and distanced itself from the content creators they once celebrated.
YouTube backlash
“People are asking, ‘Where is PewDiePie?’ either him by himself or his battle with T-Series,” DeFranco said. “Where is Shane Dawson, who had arguably one of the biggest series on YouTube this year? What about a reference to KSI and Logan Paul making one of the biggest pay-per-view events ever?”
DeFranco added that YouTube could arguably not be aware of their “Real community.” However, it could also be intentional. “An argument has been made that it’s an attempt by YouTube to distance themselves from any controversy,” he says.
2016 was a tumultuous year for the platform. YouTube introduced new ad-friendly policies Content creators began calling out YouTube for their policies as it would soon lead to a wave of demonetization, an ongoing issue that creators regularly raise against the platform. Then in 2017, things got worse when PewDiePie, YouTube’s biggest content creator, was caught in the middle of an anti-Semitic language controversy after using such language in his YouTube videos.
Then came Logan Paul’s controversy surrounding his video exploring Japan’s Aokigahara Forest. Advertisers began leaving the platform, and YouTube executives had to find a way to manage their content creating community and the advertisers who pay the bills. YouTube’s algorithm started emphasizing late-night shows and celebrities who started their own YouTube channels in an attempt to prove advertisers they would be safe from any backlash from user-generated content. As a result, YouTube creators started feeling ignored.
YouTube Rewind 2018 backlash may be the culmination of years of bad blood. The community, which was once promoted by the streaming platform, continues to feel ignored by the culture YouTube wants to push to advertisers. However, with any kind of user-generated content, comes the risk of users creating controversial content, which is bad for business. As YouTube continues to grow and dominate the video watching culture, expect YouTube Rewind to become a thing of the past unless the streaming platform can connect with the community that helped make the website what it is today.
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