YouTube has had it with 2020’s tomfoolery, trickery, and downright disgracefulness. The platform is peace-ing out early and canceling its annual “Rewind” event. No looking back, only forward. “Since 2010, we’ve ended the year with Rewind: a look back at the year’s most impactful creators, videos, and trends,” reads a statement. “Whether you love it — or only remember 2018 — Rewind was always meant to be a celebration of you. But 2020 has been different. And it doesn’t feel right to carry on as if it weren’t. So, we’re taking a break from Rewinds this year. We know that so much of the good that did happen in 2020 was created by all of you. You’ve found ways to lift people up, help them cope, and make them laugh. You made a hard year genuinely better.”
Each year, popular creators are thrown together to try to re-create the joy their homemade content brought with an overproduced music video. Traditionally, the trendiest moments — from pizza rat to “Damn, Daniel” — are showcased. But after 2018’s Rewind was criticized for being too commercial, racking up over 18 million dislikes (a record-breaking number at the time), the format was switched to the top 10 most liked videos of 2019, broken up into genres. The top creator video? Mr. Beast’s “Make This the Most Liked Video on YouTube.” Whether 2020’s is from Dramageddon 3.0: Karmageddon or is just some random Minecraft video, YouTube’s not even gonna go there. 2020 who?
