This year I was wondering what might happen in the YouTube Rewind. I actual wasn't sure. I knew the dress would show up somehow. I figures Shia Labeouf would have his influence. I was almost certain it would have some kind of 10 year throw back. But other than that I wasn't sure what would happen. Sadly YouTube must have felt the same way.
I have been watching YouTube more than ever this year. Joel Sexton (Host of the Indie Intellect Talk Show youtube.com/indieintellect ) and I have described our selves as students of the platform. We have listened to every episode of Rhett and Link's Ear Biscuits studied famous YouTuber's growth patterns and watched way more youtube than is healthy. So we were both excited to see this years Rewind. Sadly it was a lot of build up for not much of a performance.
YouTube Rewind has a lot on it's hands. It is trying to figure out what were the most important things to highlight not the most viewed. It's also not trying to figure out what's most important to the world but to the active YouTube subscriber. The ones that go to Tyler Oakley sleep overs and Pentatonix concerts and knew about Miranda Sings long before she ever showed up on Comedians In Cars Getting Coffee. With that said they missed the mark. 2015's rewind already has 108 thousand dislikes and its only 4 days into its release. 2014's rewind only has 59 thousand dislikes and it has had a year to grow that number.
There is an up side for YouTube though. It currently sits at the most liked video as well with 1.4 million likes. 2012 through 2014 had 1 to 1.1 million likes. That means 300 million more people liked the 2015 rewind video.
But it's easy to like something. Likes are cheep. You really have to try hard to get those dislikes. Did YouTube deserve all the hate? Was this a reaction to YouTube Red? What do you think? Let me know in the comments below. Where did YouTube go wrong??
