YouTube’s year-in-review ‘Rewind’ series ending after 10 editions

Abner Li | Oct 7 2021 - 9:51 am PT

With YouTube Rewind changing in recent years, including the lack of one in 2020, the Google video site said today that it’s ending the annual recap video, though a “different and updated kind of experience” might take its place.

The first YouTube Rewind was released in 2010 as a recap of the year in trends, memes, and other pop culture moments that occurred on the video site. It was often a big-budget projection that incorporated top Creators.

In 2018, YouTube infamously published a greatly panned edition of Rewind due to the lack of community relevance. It has since garnered over 19 million dislikes (to 3 million likes), with the company course-correcting in 2019 as a result. YouTube did not release a Rewind in 2020, citing how “different” and non-celebratory the year was.

YouTube will similarly not make a Rewind for 2021, but that’s due to the entire series coming to an end. The company told Tubefilter that the decision was not due to past criticism. The YouTube Creators Twitter account added that it is “refocus[ing] our energies on celebrating you and the trends that make YouTube 🔥 with a different and updated kind of experience.”

As such, a replacement recap experience appears to be in the works, but no details are available yet. YouTube, meanwhile, suggests viewers watch “Rewind” videos from popular creators:

It’ll continue to be inspiring to see the myriad of ways the most creative content producers in the world — our YouTube creators — encapsulate the end of year in their video recaps, as YouTube retires its own Rewind video.