YouTube Rewind ends after years of love-hate relationship with its audience

YouTube’s beloved yet infamous year-end roundup video of creators, memes and trends, YouTube Rewind, is finally cancelled for good by the video streaming company. YouTube on 7 October confirmed this decision on TubeFilter.

YouTube also stated that it was not cancelling YouTube Rewind due to the heavy criticism the project has been receiving, like when YouTube Rewind 2018 became the most disliked video with a total of 10.1 million dislikes in less than a week, defeating Justin Bieber’s “Baby” at 9.9 million dislikes. Instead, the company said that the project was cancelled since it felt like the YouTube ecosystem has become so vast and massive that it is impossible to encapsulate the whole thing into one video every year.

YouTube also said that it will pass the baton to its creators. “Since Rewind started in 2011, we have seen creators from MrBeast [54 million views], elrubiusOMG and Slayy Point, to so many more, create their own end-of-year videos, uniquely capturing the year from each of their perspectives,” a YouTube spokesperson told TubeFiller.

However, the company will not be funding these YouTube creators even though it acknowledges that they are the best way to develop Rewind. They would promote the content instead.