It’s Not Hard To See Why YouTube’s 2018 Rewind Was A Catastrophic Shitfest

[News]

We’re nearing the end of another year and that means a number of things. Boundaries are being pushed on an almost daily basis as offices around the country are throwing moral obligations out the window and getting absolutely fuckin’ rowdy, Mum’s gearing up to do the “big” Christmas shop – a task that seemingly takes 2 months of planning to execute flawlessly – and YouTube have just dropped the video nobody asked for: their 2018 rewind. 

If you haven’t seen the video yet then be warned, it’s pretty fucking awful. It’s like having a fever dream where the most infuriating and godless moments of the year are thrown back in your face, soundtracked by dubstep renditions of top 40 radio Nova hits.

I’ll level with you guys, I made it to around 6 minutes into the video until I couldn’t watch anymore. There’s something about having random YouTubers thrown in my face like I’m supposed to know them that just irks me. 

But, why the big commotion this year? Every year Rewind drops it’s not exactly heralded for its artistic ingenuity, but this year more than any other it seems like there’s a huuuuuge disparity between what the platform actually represents and how YouTube wants to be perceived by advertisers. 

Marques Brownlee, a YouTube tech reviewer featured in the video, made some very insightful points regarding the filming process and what Rewind mean to the platform.

The “problem” with YouTube Rewind is pretty simple, actually – the delta between what creators/audiences expect and what YouTube wants to show has never been more clear.

— Marques Brownlee (@MKBHD) December 10, 2018

Creators want YouTube Rewind to be a celebration of YouTubers and the biggest/best stuff on the platform that year.

YouTube wants Rewind to be a couple minutes they can show to advertisers and say “look at all the great stuff over here that you want to spend your dollars on!”

— Marques Brownlee (@MKBHD) December 10, 2018

We talked about how this Rewind would be different, and going from 300+ talents to around 100. But the edit is still overwhelming, and it ALWAYS looks like they're trying to please and include everyone. Which they clearly can't.

— Marques Brownlee (@MKBHD) December 10, 2018

Not only does YouTube often fail to address their major criticisms in order to present a calm and problematic exterior to their clients, but they fail to advocate or help those that actually give them content to which to sell to advertisers. If creators are not valued on a site which relies on their creations in order to make a profit, then it’s simply a massive slap in the face to those who put time into their craft. 

Honestly, with each new YouTube scandal it makes me wonder how close we are to another video hosting site popping up and taking creators away from YouTube, maybe PornHub can step up?

As for an actual rewind, the below video does a much better job of capturing what it was like to be on YouTube this year in the first 15 seconds then the entire 2018 Rewind video, tide pods and all.

Source