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YouTube's Rewind annual trend-recap videos are officially dead now

Last year, Rewind was on "break."

Joan E. Solsman Former Senior Reporter
Joan E. Solsman was CNET's senior media reporter, covering the intersection of entertainment and technology. She's reported from locations spanning from Disneyland to Serbian refugee camps, and she previously wrote for Dow Jones Newswires and The Wall Street Journal. She bikes to get almost everywhere and has been doored only once.
Expertise Streaming video, film, television and music; virtual, augmented and mixed reality; deep fakes and synthetic media; content moderation and misinformation online Credentials
  • Three Folio Eddie award wins: 2018 science & technology writing (Cartoon bunnies are hacking your brain), 2021 analysis (Deepfakes' election threat isn't what you'd think) and 2022 culture article (Apple's CODA Takes You Into an Inner World of Sign)
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Joan E. Solsman
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YouTube has more than 2 billion monthly visitors. 

 Angela Lang/CNET

YouTube's annual Rewind videos -- which evolved over nearly a decade into elaborate collabs with the biggest online stars and influencers recapping the trends of the year -- are officially dead now. Last year, YouTube skipped Rewind, saying it was taking "a break" from the clips that were always widely anticipated, heavily watched and (often) viciously mocked. On Tuesday, the company said it was ending the annual practice entirely. 

The news was first reported by Tubefilter and confirmed on one of YouTube's Twitter accounts. 

YouTube Rewind routinely drew in hundreds of millions of views on Google's massive video service. The 2018 Rewind, for example, sits at nearly 220 million views. That year's edition also had the distinction of being the most-disliked video on the platform, one that even YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki's own children called "cringey." But every YouTube Rewind has topped 100 million views since 2012, and it was often considered a major milestone of validation and success when a particular creator or trend was included. 

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But YouTube has grown so sprawling that an officially sanctioned recap video couldn't manage to include the scope and diversity of the platform, the company said to Tubefilter. YouTube, which has 2 billion monthly users, is the planet's largest online video source. 

On its Twitter accounted aimed at creators, YouTube encouraged them to take up the reins with their own Rewind-style videos, and it teased that YouTube would "refocus" on a "different and updated kind of experience." 

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