Last year, YouTube had already done without its annual Rewind, the video in which it selected the most popular trends and creators of the year on the platform. The motivation, of course, had to do with the pandemic outbreak: there was nothing to celebrate, just a bad year to leave behind.
2021, which is now nearing its end, was not so different: but this time, Google’s decision is not momentary and has nothing to do with the health emergency. The message is clear: YouTube will no longer package any Rewinds.
However, this does not mean that he will completely abandon the idea of recapitulating the year’s events: to do so. However, he will adopt a ” different and updated type of experience “no longer known.
We’ll find out around December, presumably. The short message also invites creators to produce their own Rewinds (some may remember Pewdiepie’s from 2018, in open dispute with the official version?).
The reasons for this choice, although Mountain View does not explicitly mention them, are apparent. Over the years, YouTube Rewinds have become a controversial bomb impossible to contain, raising dislike. The 2018 Rewind had managed to win the palm of the single video with the most dislike of the entire platform, and in 2019 it did not go better.
Google must have done the math and understood that the trend is impossible to reverse. The public reaction has to do with the format adopted. By now, the rift between Google and the community, which loudly claimed that it was no longer represented worthily, had become irremediable.
