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With no more rewind, RU-vid should make their own version of "Spotify Wrapped." It would be great to see what channels I watched the most throughout the year, what music I listened to, etc.
The first youtube rewind I ever saw was 2014 and i remember LOVING it at the time. I think it was because nobody knew "youtubers" yet and it felt like a little secret community where I knew all the people in the vid and understood all the references when lots of other people wouldn't have. It's obviously outdated now but it still has a place in my heart
I think the fall started in 2015 personally, a lot less energy than the others, picked back up in 2016, then bombed in 2017. ngl tho, I thought he was reviewing the rewinds and when he put 2018 in good year, I almost threw my iPad
Yeah the crazy thing about that is that Lud is wrong and stupid and dumb and 2013 was actually banging and he's wrong and an idiot for saying otherwise
@@fredfondler7281 Yeah, it kinda feels like he started with the intent of reviewing the rewinds, then switched to what he ended with because of those rankings.
2012: This was such an important year for RU-vid, so influential and culturally significant. Literally one year later: I feel like this was the beginning of the end.
2015 rewind is so nostalgic to me. I watched Mark before that year, but I remember so vividly seeing him in the rewind, watching with my friends, and being so excited that a CC I adored was there. 7 years later, and he's still one of the best IMO. Good times.
this video made me realize that what made youtube rewind good is being forgotten. like there are trends that made me so happy as a kid, but now i don't remember much and i just can't enjoy the videos besides feeling a fleeting sense of nostalgia that i don't understand anymore
@@dianasaur2442 probably cuz it doesn't look the same or is able to be on screen the same way or something looks bad, they kinda have the only way that ppl fw now with the see through black behind the og twitch chating don't so u can read it clearly but still see full screen
the creator-made rewinds (pewds and me beast’s) are so good though because they are focusing on memes and things that actually happened instead of just getting as many big creators together as possible
It's the same for so many people as well lol. Starting around 2013, the site got so big you could be in one part of the community and never watch stuff from another part. The gaming, vlog, beauty communities etc. were all super insulated.
Finally someone acknoledged the significance of 2016 in meme culture. So good to reminise where we've come from. Makes you feel less alone when you have a shared history.
Ludwig recognizing people but not recognizing trends/challenges/specific cultural things that where huge in any single year or not understanding why they were on the videos made me realize how much RU-vid Rewinds lost their identity in the last years.
It’s kinda like he said, RU-vid after 2017 or so became so diverse by category that there’s no way to appeal to most of the audience in 8 minutes. For people in the gaming space like Ludwig, you’ll miss a lot of the stuff on the outside with how big gaming has become and the fact the YT algorithm stopped promoting gaming after 201.
I feel like what's also missed is all the "viral videos" cameo like the super hero kid shooting at the zombie baby prank that scares the girl that doesn't want her brother to get old. That's literally 3 huge viral videos one after the other being referenced in 1 scene. (It's at 9:02 ). This is why IMO old youtube was way better in terms in of Rewind videos. It wasn't only creators coming in and doing something as part of a cameo but also reference to viral things. in the 2013 one which he called cringe, you have kid president which was big back then, all the goats referencing that goat singing instead of singers trend, You have the real beauty sketches mixed in with Convos with my 2y/o, you have prancersise done by the actually lady from the viral video, You have the girl from the interpretation dance video recreating it followed by the bar mitzvah dancing kid recreating his dance. I feel like that's the big difference between now RU-vid/Internet and then RU-vid/Internet. Things that went viral were seen by almost everyone. Now it's all curated for you so you might miss out on something that others think is "viral". Which is why I feel like later rewinds fail. Not only do they try to cram a lot of people in a video they don't have much to reference in terms of viral videos/trends. In 2018 they used such board terms as viral ideas like Mukbangs, Fortnite and Kpop. Instead of doing like pewdiepie did and dug up viral memes and viral youtube moments even if controversial.
I think by Rewind 2018, people were starting to see how YT was changing to appeal to advertisers and companies rather than the actual communities that made the platform as successful as it is/ was and this video was the final nail in the coffin showing that...
Honestly it's crazy how breakneck shit has been since 2018. Like it does NOT feel like it's been 3 years since everyone was shitting on Will Smith with the THATS HOT meme.
A big thing with 2018 as well is that's when creators really started to make their own individual rewinds for the year and started pushing more and more away from RU-vid
Yeah and the music was a huge part of that year for me at least like 2011-2013 had some str8 bangers that when I listen to them I get a huge wave of nostalgia
Well, there were subcultures for years at this point, but 2012 was the year when everything became so interconnected, you could really tell THE internet culture started forming
One thing I hate to watch as someone who practically grew up with RU-vid, is that slowly over the course from 2012 to now, the censorship and increasing amount of ads have degraded this platform (never forget the Adpocolypse and the deaths of Filthy Frank, among other creators )
@@luigi_fan2989 True , but he talked about those things befor moving over to music. The main problem is , if you do not get monotized (even if you find some other way of making money of your videos) , then youtube wont make any money off your videos ( you will only be a burden) and you won't get promoted by the algorithm. Which means that it's basicly the advertisers who chooses what Content are acceptable or not.
How I see it: 2005-2009 - Someone pointed out that this era is a myth and that’s literally a perfect description. The prehistoric era. 2010-2013 - The Golden Age of RU-vid. It’s a lot of wholesome content that is probably cringe looking back on it but every creator was genuine and built the foundation for RU-vid. 2014-2016 - Everything started to get bigger. More and more creators started to rise and RU-vid felt like one giant community. The corporations were slowly starting to creep in however… (imo this was peak RU-vid) 2017 - We don’t talk about this year. 2018-2019 - This is the start of where RU-vidrs started to feel more like brands rather than creators. Money seemed to be a main drive for many, and content didn’t seem all that genuine. Internet culture also became “disfunctional” and “batshit insane”. Corporations have pretty much become a part of RU-vid. 2020-Now - This time period was probably not what people wanted, but honestly it’s what people needed. A lot of reflection occurred during the pandemic, and overall brought the community closer. The big creators were struggling with ideas and ways to create, but the smaller creators thrived and grew as a result. As we gained a little bit of normalcy, it has seemed to be a good balance of creators. Conclusion: There has been high peaks and low lows with RU-vid, but there could be a bit of optimism moving (only a bit, they can totally ruin this site if they felt like it)
dude, you’re so right with 2020 being a year of smaller creators. i felt like i RARELY ever watch a video from a mainstream creator from that year and i started to watch more smaller creators because i feel like the trending tab is basically dogshit cause of what happened in 2018
for youtube, 2021 is probably the worst. RU-vid keeps suggin the balls of corporations with frequency and removed the dislike button so that the companies wouldn't get massive dislikes on literally every video because it's trash.
I remember back in 2018 the entire youtube community waited for the rewind in excitment because of the AMOUNT of ACTUAL CONTENT we had. Raging from memes to music. It was a goated year, so the rewind was truly disappoiting.
This made me realize how long I've been watching a lot of these people. The oldest starting in probably 2006 to current, the oldest "show"/channel that moved onto RU-vid I started in late 2003. Though I do wonder how many people know that the Harlem Shake meme was made by Pink Guy
10:47 "He's traveling back in time to stop himself from saying the n-word" followed immediately by PewDiePie getting launched into another timeline had me dying
As someone who doesn't remember teenage and young adult years this video made me feel somewhat warm inside. I remembered watching these rewinds for the first time when they premiered. Made me see the perspective of those years, they weren't that long ago. Thanks Ludwig and Shake for that nice experience, great video :)
How do you not remember those years at all? Like, I get that certain eras in your life can become a blur, but it seems odd to me that someone wouldn’t remember half of a decade. Maybe that’s just because those were my formative years (middle school, mostly) so I remember them pretty well.
@@SmoothTurtle840 I know facts of my life at the time, but from what I learned others have said, not my own POV, and remember certain moments and how they made me feel. So it's not, like, bad, i just don't understand how people can recall that period of time of and on their own. I just don't have strong long memory, but tbh I don't have any reason to make it accessible again, although it does feel nice when I can resurface more nostalgia i didn't know i had like from this video :)
@@alfirstar I've never had someone put into words, I can only remember stuff from like a few years ago, maybe 3 or 4 years vividly and the rest is just non existent, sometimes even people I've met 1 or 2 years ago just don't exist to me anymore. Kinda sad but I'd rather forget everything than remember every thing
Ludwig not knowing the trends of these years is why he rated some lower than they should've. People who were watching daily life and challenges RU-vidrs since like 2012 know nearly everyone for the next few Rewind years. I think Lud just had a skewed perspective due to him being more on gaming youtube than anywhere else. For example: He said “KSI!” when I said “Caspar Lee & KSI!” He said “Pewdiepie!” when I said “Zoella & Pewds!”
Mostly because RU-vid became too big for its own good. It got to the point where they needed to cram in every popular creator from every genre and every country into rewind in order to have someone for everyone. There are probably hundreds of channels with over 10 million subs that you could realistically never know about today, where in 2012 there was like 15 big creators that everyone knew.
The Casper lee and zoella thing is probably because he’s American, most Americans weren’t aware of and didn’t watch that group of yotubers with Caspar lee and zoella and stuff but Ksi and in particular pewdiepie were way more well known
There's people in the livestream commenting DAN AND PHIL right where Ludwig was like "I don't know who half this people is". 2013 was such a strong incredible time in terms of content creators, and honestly, the RU-vid Rewind for that year was one of the best. They really tried to include anyone and I would say they almost succeeded.
One thing he skipped over is how 2017 was the start of major family friendly enforcement. That's what makes 2016 goated And the start of RU-vidr corporatisation with sponsors starting to have a bigger influence over content
Dude i’ll be honest, i didnt like 2018 for obvious reason but the animation section made me smile, i liked seeing the animators and that was rly all i liked abt that years rewind
When did we start caring whether or not something was cringe? I miss when things were just enjoyed. And, even if you didn’t like it, you could still respect the creativity behind it. The Harlem Shake was a pretty awesome thing back when it came out.
It's 2021 and status means a lot now sadly, people don't wanna be grouped up with someone who enjoys nyan cat and annoying orange and stuff like that. I'll admit I don't want to watch any of it anymore since I'm grown up now, but I do appreciate what they did and stood for. It was entertainment, to some, it still is.
Same! As someone who's been watching RU-vid since 2012, I miss when I first saw the YTRewinds and actually enjoyed them without worrying about how popular it was to hate on it tbh
Growing up and looking back at embarrassing things, or seeing weird stuff that's just plain "wtf" to look at was considered to be cringe and still is. I agree, the cringe stuff existed for years, but was higher in the 2013-2016 era since a variety of new things were introduced into RU-vid that people disliked. The Harlem Shake (created by George Miller aka Filthy Frank) was a trend that everyone did and since then, George himself stated to be embarrassing at times since he never understood why it became trendy. Before 2013, many of those things were simply considered comedy or entertainment, such as the Numa Numa, Star Wars kid, etc. Chocolate Rain
2017 was pretty influential imo, as more foreign youtubers from more countries got to have even more participation (AKA the Neto brothers and several south american creators), along with a lot of the animation community getting a lot more representation
It's kind of funny that basically every instance of him saying "this was the year X channel started taking off" that was actually the year they peaked and plummeted.
Yeah when he mentioned Roosterteeth and The Yogscast I was like…bruh were you even on the internet? Yogs took off around 2011-2012, riding Minecraft in order to do so (along with CaptainSparklez, SethBling, and a few others, everyone and their mother had a Minecraft let’s play going). Roosterteeth popped off around the same time with Rage Quit, Minecraft, and later GTA V, hitting peak around 2013-2015. I’m pretty sure Yogscast died around 2014 when Pewds, Jack, Mark, and a few others basically took over.
Dude I thought people forgot about Yogscast at this point- nice to know that isn't the case. But unfortunately we're a decade past at this point from their glory days.
@@riskingrain1560 Idk though, the Yogscast Jingle Jam is going pretty well so far this year, 25k viewers as I write this comment. Maybe they’ll have a comeback?
this just made me realize 2018 memes have had so much longevity and cultural impact, all current memes feel like they can only be understood in the context of 2018
11:05 I like that, regardless of how different they are, when ever people think of gaming youtubers they think of jacksepticeye, markiplier and pewdiepie. Like it rolls off the tongue to say the three and just generally regarded as the most recognisable
2020 was the year of what I call the "Duration Chasm" where videos became either 30 second shitposts or half an hour to 3hr essay length pieces about extremely niche subjects and there is no in between. The ten minute video is dead, videos now take up a full day to listen to and theyre not afraid to go balls to the wall. 2hrs, 4hrs, 6 hrs. Its gotten so that a 1hr video feels short.
And a lot of time wasted. At least I watch Vanoss since it's short enough. I kinda stopped watching Mark aside from reusing stock expressions is that most of his videos are long so i couldn't catch up anymore. And it's too late since I'm working now
I think a lot of it is also that it was around 2020 when the meta emerged of streaming on Twitch and then posting either a raw or edited VOD to RU-vid, making it a lot easier to do long-duration content because you could justify it by double-dipping on the creator side.
2013 literally is the best year, u don't see them as cringe AT THE TIME. I remember watching variety of unique and creative creators at 2013(smosh, rhett n link, rocket jump, etc.) and they get represented in YT rewind very well, like i know 90% of the creators that went into it. Its like 2012 but more improved. ludwig is trippin.
Some of the most classic mc youtubers were more prominent and greater than 2012. Minecraft would likely be more of a trend if its initial era only was influential for 1 year straight. 2013 is a highly influential year.
I forgot how good Pewdiepie's 2018 rewind was, especially compared to all the other stuff RU-vid themselves did. Nice throwback, thanks for this video!
2013 to 2014 were the rise of "relatable" contents hence Dan And Phil being there because they were kind of the pinnacle "lol so random but I'll cringe about this later" and by the end of 2014 was the rise of RU-vid music artist like Christina Grimmie, PTX and other singers that were growing on the platform along with gaming
Kinda sad that he stopped watching the 2013 rewind just before the video hit its peak with the Slow Mo Guys segment. Which I would say is definitely not cringe and is far better than any scene of any following Rewind.
I think to me 2020-2021 have been the worst years of RU-vid so far. Man with the disruption from covid, algorithm changes and the culling of creators that's been building up overtime (retirement, cancel culture, death/disease, huge fall offs where the change in content is practically a different channel and it doesn't pick up again, unofficial retirement via infrequent uploads, etc) there was less mature edited gaming content outside of shooters then ever. Like I love speed running documentaries and other classics from that era but you burn through it all so quickly compared to classic daily edited 20-30 minute gaming playthrough which felt like was really lacking those years especially. I wanted to find someone funny who didn't act immature 24/7 uploading quality reliable videos for gaming, and it's one of those things where you'd feel like there'd be a lot of competition in that space with someone definitely at the top but those two years it really felt like all the people I could find were kinda mid humor wise if they did everything else right. Even with 100~ subscriptions, most of them didn't upload and in a day there might be like 3 videos I'd consider watching.
I personally feel like 2020 was a goated year. It felt like a return to the old RU-vid in a lot of ways. A lot less production polish and a lot more focus on the individual creators and I don't think there was a more collaborative time that Among Us.
@@yeahwhatever7769 "Goated" is a verb that comes from the phrase "greatest of a time," which is often abbreviated to G.O.A.T., or goat. To say something is goated means it carries the qualities of something that could be described as the greatest of all time.
I’d also like to add that 2018-2019 was also around the time where videos with non-meme/shot post premises designed for technical explanation in different topics because more mainstream and prevalent
4:00 I kid you not when I was in school one of my teachers would play that song in the morning for every Friday and I am convinced they were the sole reason for it getting that many views.
The most curious thing about rewinds is the lack of non-English representation. They are chock full of diversity and whatever, but only among anglophone channels. They forget that their own platform is completely global.
they had some non english but yeah not a lot tho i do understand why, even with a mostly english cast a lot of people dont find recognizeable creators. they are too big
I am genuinely depressed that Tobuscus was not brought up… that guy BUILT the Minecraft community when he was the king of RU-vid, and that very much helped gaming get its footing on the platform.
@@Ratchet2431 Thats a very good point. I wonder what youtube would be like if they didn't pay you and it was just a site to get noticed by companies that fit your niche? 🤔
I wonder how many other early 2000's kids feel this way, but for me (05'), the rewinds and YT culture from 2010 to at least 2014 is so engrained on my memory and nosltagic that even the trashy shit from those years is always going to be top tier for me. I also think that 2015+ is still nostalgic but it's easier to be critical of those years than the ones before, idky.
2012 was good cringe. It’s like when some 7 year old kid goes up to you and tells you knock knock jokes while dabbing on the punchlines. Yeah it’s cringe but it’s so bad it’s pure.
I'm lowkey kinda sad over the fact that RU-vid doesn't make rewinds anymore! I miss both making fun of the trash ones and enjoying the good ones! We legit bullied RU-vid out of making rewinds:/. To be fair tho, RU-vid's rewind in 2018 and 2019 sucked
Well it's quite average, it caters to only his own audience, it's very anglophone but in fairness it was for his audience only, it's more like a PewDiePie circle jerk rewind/ meme rewind even there only English memes
@@user-or8ql3fe5v never claimed to. But as a person with eyes and opinions, I have the brain capacity to criticize a RU-vid video. If being able to think critically about the stuff I watch makes me an “Internet connoisseur”, than very well. But don’t patronize me because I don’t take “biggest RU-vidr and best three memers” as a prestigious title.
@@katero9795 you're not wrong but he also didn't really have many good things to say about the rewind. My opinion still stands even if he was rating the year
I mean I'm just stating my opinion here so please don't attack me but personally I was never a massive fan of the filthy Frank era with leafy and such I always kind of thought it was sort of like just straight band kid humour but just my opinion.
I think Ludwig misjudged some years because a lot of things included were from movies. Moana came out in 2016; Frozen came out late 2013 (hence it showing up for the first time in 2014).
Ngl this felt like a hit of nostalgia while some of these aged like milk and also aged like fine wine I’m glad we can all agree that these are good recaps of RU-vid’s history
The period between 2012 and 2017 was just Golden age RU-vid, which also meant it to be at the height of its power. It had such a serious hold on me that I had also developed a huge addiction towards it, and spent the larger part of 2018 with massive anxiety as a result. It shows both the quality and the quantity of content being produced on a regular basis, which was both amazing as well as downright overwhelming.
I think 2012 was the first year I started watching FreddieW, Corridor, Epic Meal Time. So nostalgic. FreddieW, and Corridor influenced me to persue a career in Animation and VFX.
Regarding the Arab spring in 2011, a LOT of people thought we were actually going to see a democratic revolution wave throughout the Arab world. Yes people died because literal war lords ruled that part of the world. But the strive towards democracy was something inspiring.
Growing up watching these felt different, watching these now is rough. 2012 was definitely the best. Like seeing Smosh and Corridor Digital together was amazing. Corridor Digital is still making banger videos
as someone who had a MASSIVE youtube hyperobsession at age 12 in 2012 and watched every single thing i loved about the site be absolutely destroyed by cooperations and greed, i feel so old. and i'm only 21. feels like yesterday when ray william johnson casually called me and my friends fat lesbians on twitter and we quickly moved on from that discourse because the newest lunchtime with smosh video was about to drop
