To understand the trendiest topics on YouTube, we have to go back to its inception in 2005. YouTube has been fascinating to study over the past 15 years or so because of the website’s ability to be a hearth (and data representation) for pretty much every trending topic. Creators started on the platform by posting whatever they wanted and making a video about whatever felt important. As the feed of most of your social media platforms now, there is no specific “theme” or underlying principle regarding what was said. YouTube was a wild frontier, and the videos were usually quite random, having no real objective or topic.
How YouTube Got to Be
Over time, the progressions that make the YouTube we know and love today started taking hold. The hallmarks of a standard YouTube video today were beginning to appear in the work of content creators by 2010 or so. We take the ease of use and high production value of YouTube content for granted, and a lot of what we are familiar with started during this time. Here are some examples:
- People started editing their videos with primitive Microsoft editing software and purchasing higher quality video cameras. This greatly increased the quality and traffic of the website.
- Cameras became more affordable and even came with phones. This skyrocketed the public’s ability to participate in YouTube videos and created the first YouTube motto, “Broadcast Yourself.”
- As content and users increased, the website became more refined. The comments section, along with like and dislike buttons were added. This turned YouTube into a social platform where anyone could share how they felt on a video.
- YouTube started having general topics of videos, and most people searched for a specific idea. For example, how-to videos or funny viral videos became the norm. This was the start of “trending YouTube” topics, which have evolved into today’s trending videos.
Nowadays, you can find a YouTube video about anything. Instead of there simply being a main topic or grouping of YouTube videos, there are thousands. And within each of these categories are millions of hours of content. YouTube is no longer the place where anyone can make it as a viral overnight star. Corporations can churn out hours of high-quality content almost instantly and can easily rack up a million views within a day of posting. This is why it’s more important than ever to have a way to naturally increase your views and get an edge on corporations and media groups. The best way to do this is by drip-feed YouTube views through easy-views.org, where you can get real people to watch your videos at a fair price. The best part? Your views aren’t just quickly added up by bots. In fact, they are viewed by real people, and the view count slowly “drips” up.
YouTube Trends Today
YouTube is now the most used video platform in the world, and its infrastructure shows it. The YouTube algorithm has been perfected and tweaked for the better part of a decade to figure out exactly what will keep a user watching and staying busy. Additionally, YouTube has branched out into TV shows, and many famous YouTubers now post to the platform as their full-time job. In fact, it’s even made a multi millionaire or two!
This endless amount of content means that YouTube’s trending videos are a representation of humanity’s peaked interests at any given moment. YouTube’s trending page shows us the top trending videos at that time, and unsurprisingly, they are very mainstream. Usually, this place has the most recent upload of a top YouTuber or the YouTube video of a famous artist’s new song. Trending topics show us short-term trends such as viral uploads of the day or songs from one-hit-wonder musicians.
Beyond that, YouTube has centered itself around a culture of long-term trends and viewership. The site allows us to see the most viewed content of the decade, hosts an annual “YouTube Rewind” video montage of the top annual moments, and can generally provide us content around long-term trends. This can be seen through increased adoption of the platform by public figures, and even the founders of our democracy. Is a new celebrity doing a live stream or vlogging about their latest endeavors? You can bet you’ll find it on YouTube. Has there been a major news event or a live political debate? They’ve got it! Over 100 counties have posted official content to the site, and you’d be hard-pressed to find a news company that doesn’t regularly cite footage or post to it.
Many people even rely on YouTube or other social media for life-changing matters: YouTube has taught us CPR, advanced philosophical concepts, and math formulas students use on tests. Teachers show videos to classes as educational content, and many of them even post from there. The vast majority of the population is equipped with a high definition camera and interface, making posting a matter of a few seconds for practically everyone in the world!
In the face of daunting life tasks (be they social, financial, relationship, or even fixing your car), YouTube has become both a cultural and literal center to find solutions. It’s rare that one finds a problem being solved with the phrase “Learn how to do it!” instead of “Look it up on YouTube!”. The most trending videos are a direct reflection of our progression as individuals and members of society.