For many years now YouTube has made a yearly video celebrating YouTube content creators. This yearly video series is called "YouTube Rewind". They typically star famous YouTubers.
At the beginning, these videos were very liked, and the like-to-dislike ratio was overwhelmingly positive. Two years ago (ie. "YouTube Rewind 2016"), there was an unusual amount of dislikes. Still not many, compared to the amount of likes, but still quite a lot. Last year, however, with "YouTube Rewind 2017", the amount of dislikes started to raise quite a lot, with the video having about as many dislikes and likes.
Now, "YouTube Rewind 2018", released a couple of weeks ago, has broken two records: Most dislikes a YouTube video has ever received in its first 48 hours, and now, a bit later, the most disliked YouTube video of all time (in raw number of dislikes), breaking all previous records. At the moment of writing this the video has over 11 million dislikes (compared to a bit over 2 million likes).
Why?
It's actually not completely clear-cut why there was such a flood of dislikes last year, which culminated this year to overwhelming numbers. However, the most likely reason is that a good portion of YouTube users are actually quite aware of all the politics and antics that Google has been engaging in, with all the demonetizations, restrictions and bans based on political bias. YouTube also cutting ties with PewDiePie, the most subscribed (and one of the most liked) YouTubers of all time, pretty much shunning him and unpersoning him, based on slanderous hit pieces written by third-party journalists, may have had an effect. (After all, it only takes a small fraction of his 75 million subscribers to dislike the Rewind video to make that number skyrocket.) PewDiePie has effectively become the enemy of the Silicon Valley tech corporations, who they can't get rid of, even though they are trying very hard. (Which is strange, really, since he quite rarely expresses any political opinions. I suppose it's enough that he's not part of the regressive leftist orthodoxy, and has way too much influence for their liking.)
Many have commented how the contents of the video itself are also quite indicative of how out-of-touch Google has become with their target audience. I think there's merit in this argument.
One of the main aspects of the video that just goes to show this is that it stars and prominently features the word-famous actor Will Smith. Why? I'd say two main reasons:
Firstly, "YouTube Rewind" is supposed to be a celebration of YouTube content creators. Of what makes YouTube such a great platform. Will Smith does have a YouTube channel, but he's in no way famous for it, nor known as a YouTuber. Google probably thought of hiring him for the video because he's such a "cool" and well-liked and respected actor, expecting to get cheers and excitement from the audience. Which just goes to show how out of touch they are with said audience.
Secondly, and more subtly, this is kind of a "Freudian slip" of sorts from Google. Inadvertently, they are showing how good buddy-buddies they are with Hollywood and all the other rich people and megacorporations of the west coast, and the connections they have there. It's a bit like Google "flexing" by showing how they can get a world-renowned famous actor into their video production, via their connections and size. It kind of shows, inadvertently, where Google's priorities are: Not with the average small YouTuber, but with the rich people of the west coast.
At the beginning, these videos were very liked, and the like-to-dislike ratio was overwhelmingly positive. Two years ago (ie. "YouTube Rewind 2016"), there was an unusual amount of dislikes. Still not many, compared to the amount of likes, but still quite a lot. Last year, however, with "YouTube Rewind 2017", the amount of dislikes started to raise quite a lot, with the video having about as many dislikes and likes.
Now, "YouTube Rewind 2018", released a couple of weeks ago, has broken two records: Most dislikes a YouTube video has ever received in its first 48 hours, and now, a bit later, the most disliked YouTube video of all time (in raw number of dislikes), breaking all previous records. At the moment of writing this the video has over 11 million dislikes (compared to a bit over 2 million likes).
Why?
It's actually not completely clear-cut why there was such a flood of dislikes last year, which culminated this year to overwhelming numbers. However, the most likely reason is that a good portion of YouTube users are actually quite aware of all the politics and antics that Google has been engaging in, with all the demonetizations, restrictions and bans based on political bias. YouTube also cutting ties with PewDiePie, the most subscribed (and one of the most liked) YouTubers of all time, pretty much shunning him and unpersoning him, based on slanderous hit pieces written by third-party journalists, may have had an effect. (After all, it only takes a small fraction of his 75 million subscribers to dislike the Rewind video to make that number skyrocket.) PewDiePie has effectively become the enemy of the Silicon Valley tech corporations, who they can't get rid of, even though they are trying very hard. (Which is strange, really, since he quite rarely expresses any political opinions. I suppose it's enough that he's not part of the regressive leftist orthodoxy, and has way too much influence for their liking.)
Many have commented how the contents of the video itself are also quite indicative of how out-of-touch Google has become with their target audience. I think there's merit in this argument.
One of the main aspects of the video that just goes to show this is that it stars and prominently features the word-famous actor Will Smith. Why? I'd say two main reasons:
Firstly, "YouTube Rewind" is supposed to be a celebration of YouTube content creators. Of what makes YouTube such a great platform. Will Smith does have a YouTube channel, but he's in no way famous for it, nor known as a YouTuber. Google probably thought of hiring him for the video because he's such a "cool" and well-liked and respected actor, expecting to get cheers and excitement from the audience. Which just goes to show how out of touch they are with said audience.
Secondly, and more subtly, this is kind of a "Freudian slip" of sorts from Google. Inadvertently, they are showing how good buddy-buddies they are with Hollywood and all the other rich people and megacorporations of the west coast, and the connections they have there. It's a bit like Google "flexing" by showing how they can get a world-renowned famous actor into their video production, via their connections and size. It kind of shows, inadvertently, where Google's priorities are: Not with the average small YouTuber, but with the rich people of the west coast.
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