- I like the format where they're all sitting around a campfire
and reflecting and talking to each other.
That was cool. - Yeah, and a little cringy.
- Felix is such a behemoth on this platform
that he needs to be in it.
♪ (dramatic chord) ♪
- Is that Will Smith? I know the back of his head, man.
- Oh, Will Smith! - (gasps) Whoa!
- The biggest YouTuber ever. - (Will) It's Rewind time.
- Ah, yes. That time of the year once again.
- (Will) If I control Rewind, I would want Fortnite...
- Okay. I've actually never played Fortnite.
- Yes. - Oh, [bleep].
- Yes! - (Marques) Is this what you wanted?
- (ItsFunneh) You know who I would've asked for?
- Okay. - (Ninja) Quit horsin' around!
- I am in this, right? I've gotta be in this.
- Nope, that's not me. - (Ninja) Quit horsin' around!
- It's Ninja. - Oh, Ninja!
Also the biggest YouTuber. - Ohhh.
- (Marques) You said jumpin' music? - This is so cute.
There's a lot of narrative to this already.
- It's nice they're actually giving a [bleep] about gaming.
- I'm not gonna lie. I'm not familiar with anyone else
besides Ninja in this scene. - This is about to be so sick.
- Oh, dang. - Dang.
- (Ninja) Not even a thank you? - (laughs) Okay,
that was a funny meme. - It's all based around Fortnite.
That is nuts to me! - (speaking in foreign language)
- Of course. Can't have a Rewind without Liza.
- (robleisIUTU and Sofia) YEAHHH! - We got LIZAAAA!
- (laughs)
- Okay. I'm trying to see where they're going with this.
- (Liza) Apparently, we control Rewind this year.
Y'all, we can do whatever we want.
- So, wait. They can do whatever they want.
- They can do whatever they want. - They can just ask for, what?
Anything? - This is so meta.
- Ah, they got sWooZie! Okay, okay.
- (Merrell Twins) There's one thing this video needs.
- Fun fact: The Merrell Twins do speak exclusively in unison.
- (Merrell Twins and Casey) K-pop! - And that's Casey Neistat.
- K-pop. - Oh, this is so dope.
- Is this BTS? - Look, any excuse to have
some more Asian people in the mix, I'm wit it.
- This is cute. This is telling a story and showing the moments.
I like this. - Okay. A lot of diversity.
I'm on board with that. - So, how is this K-pop?
- (speaking foreign language) - (Michael) Yeah, but you're marrying
Bongo Cat. - This is such a good idea.
- Oh, Bongo Cat. - BONGO CAT!! YEAH!!
- I first learned about him here on this very set.
- (AsapSCIENCE) Rewind needs more science.
- AsapSCIENCE. - (Safiya) Love that.
Melting lipstick. - I like her.
- Oh, this is so exciting! - Oh, this is so Safiya, too.
- (speaking foreign language)
- Mukbang! - I like mukbangs!
- Yass! Okay. I'm thriving.
- Asian people kinda killed it this year.
- Molly! - (Molly) Gallop,
what do you want? - Hm.
- Try Guys, yeah. That's fair.
- (Keith and Zach) Yeah! - My boys! There they are!
Woo! - It's us! We're great!
That's it. So, thank you so much for dropping on by.
- Marshmello needs to be in this video.
- Marshmello? - Oh, Marshmello,
the biggest YouTuber! - (Yes Theory) How about Yodeling Kid?
- Oh, my guy! - No way!
- Get it? Yodeling Kid meme! Meme, guys!
Remember that for three weeks?
- Go, Ramsey, go! - I wanna see Yodeling Kid
do a triple lutz.
- I'ma stop looking for myself, okay? I'm-- you know, I've given up.
- Oh! - Oh, that was a lot of Merrell Twins.
- Casey Neistat. - (TheOdd1sOut) Guys,
let's do the In My FeelingsChallenge! - Ah! Ah! Okay, yeah.
They, uh... (chuckles) So, I gave 'em my person
doing a green screen, and I see they chroma-keyed it out.
(inhales deeply) Okay, it's fine.
- (TheOdd1sOut) Right? - ♪ Kiki, do you... ♪
- I'm the only person who has never done the Kiki Challenge.
- Ah, that circle. - (sings along) ♪ Are you riding? ♪
♪ Say you'll never ever leave ♪ - This is me and sWooZie dance.
This is the six-second dance. - (Lucas) I love this song!
- Ah, Lucas! God bless that spider.
- Lucas! - Lucas the spider!
- Lucas! - [Bleep] yeah!
- (speaking foreign language) - Oh, okay.
- Yeah, okay. They brought animation. Yes!
Thank God. Good.
- The song of the year. You couldn't go any girl's IG story
without hearing this song. - Trevor Noah's in this?!
- Oh, did the PewDiePie chair.
- Yes, yes. - Good reference.
- I really wish I was on that bus, honestly. (chuckles)
- (all, off-key) ♪ ...love me? ♪ ♪ Are you riding? ♪
- I love the spider. - (various, off-key) ♪ ...love you ♪
- (chuckles) - Ooh. That was the animated segment.
Yay! - (Lilly) You know who really
needs to be in this Rewind video? - Yes, my girl!
- SuperWoman and Liza in the same room?
- (Lilly) Everyone who managed to do something bigger
than themselves this year, who found a way to help
the causes that matter to them most.
- Oh, here we go. This is where my emo ass
comes in, I bet. - (Caspar) Everyone who proved
it's okay to talk about mental health this year...
- Mm, preach. - (Caspar) ...their view is that
it's okay to go through tough times like that.
- (Gabbie) It takes a lot of bravery to be that vulnerable,
and I am so proud of this community. - I hate-- I can't watch.
That was way too close! (laughs) Why was that right here?!
- (Sam) Celebrate the fierce, fabulous, and...
- Trixie and Katya. - (Sam) ...empowering art of drag.
- (Shalom) I want to see all of you be your own kind of beautiful.
- That's fair. - I think this is how
they're apologizing for having the Pauls be such a central part
of last year's. - (LaurDIY) Can we also give a moment
to Asian representation in entertainment this year?
- Ah, so many Asians! I love it!
- (Nikkie) Here's to all women... - Nice! Nikkie!
- (Nikkie) ...finding their voices. - (speaking Russian)
- I love how much multi-cultural representation
is in this. - They're implementing a lot
of different cultures and languages, which I think is really cool,
because YouTube is not just an English-speaking platform.
- (Simone) I wanna give a moment to everyone who supported me
when I got sick. - God bless her robots!
Yeah, she went through hell for a while.
- (Elle) We're forgetting something.
I think... - (gasps) Elle! Oh my god!
- (Elle) ...we should read the comments.
- (laughs) Yes!
- No. These are not YouTube comments. There is no swear words!
There is no death threats in these comments!
- (Liza) I have a feeling this is about to get a little bit crazy.
- (Elle) Let's give the people what they want.
- I like this song. - Back to the memes.
- Stupid shoulders. - Why didn't we get to do this?
I'm so jealous. - I know.
- Oh, James Charles! - Okay, Sister Squad!
- What are they doing in space? - ♪ High, high hopes ♪
- ASMR. - (chuckles)
- ASMR? Was that this year? - Oh, [bleep].
The ASMR people got a little moment. (laughs)
- (both moaning)
- ♪ Baby shark ♪ ♪ Doo doo doo doo doo doo ♪
♪ Baby shark ♪ - My girlfriend has been singing this
for the last four months!
- ♪ So, I'll go ♪ - (both) YEAH!
- It was us again! - Wow, those boys are so cute.
- Wow! - Dang. This is next level.
- (Will) Ah, ha-ha. - What ya doin', Will?
- Way to go, Will Smith. - Did we just watch
Will Smith's dream?
- Nice. I love that guy. - Yeah.
- Sweet. Oh, and then Primitive Technology.
- Dang. They put in everything. - Oh, that's so sick.
- I mean, eh. (laughs) - I enjoyed that.
It's kinda like... hey, kinda whimsical.
You know what I'm saying? But at the same time,
they had a nice little moment of togetherness.
- Not bad. I'm not gonna say it was missing anything.
(whispers) It was missing ME! - Normally, these are, like...
they're very cool, very flash, very well-edited.
All these people all over the world
who care about different things, and this, I think,
represents a lot more than normal.
- I like the format where they're all sitting around a campfire
and reflecting and talking to each other. That was cool.
- Yeah, and a little cringy. I feel like this year
should've probably began in a suicide forest.
- NOO! You are a terrible person!
- (FBE) So, that was YouTube Rewind 2018.
And as always, the comments are going crazy
about how certain channels are omitted.
And there's a massive amount of negativity so far
around not having PewDiePie in the Rewind with his battle
to keep the number one spot on YouTube.
- Of course they're upset that PewDiePie's not in there!
He's engaged in the greatest YouTube battle of all time.
- Felix is such a behemoth on this platform
that he needs to be in it. - Pewds and YouTube
don't have exactly the... - (both) Best relationship.
- I'm surprised Shane Dawson's not in there, honestly.
- Ooh, that's another one, yeah. - Arguably, there's a lot of YouTubers
that aren't family friendly who are doing big numbers.
If your videos are getting demonetized and that's what you're doing,
that's not really the face YouTube likes to put forward
in this type of thing. - (FBE) Negativity on Rewind
is way worse this year. As of the release of this episode,
there are well over one million more dislikes than likes.
- What? - No way!
- No matter YouTube Rewind puts in, unless they added PewDiePie,
(chuckles) people would just go in hating it.
- What the fans should do, instead of saying,
"This [bleep] sucks! [Bleep] you!
Blah, blah, blah, blah," they should actively say,
"I want this to be fixed. I think we should do this,"
and say it in more of a proper manner.
- (FBE) So, on the token of including everyone,
this year Rewind did things a little differently
and instead of having 250 channels like it did last year,
they only showcased a little over 100 creators.
Were you able to tell this year while watching it?
- I did, but I found that this one was a big storyline,
so I understand. - Yeah.
- That was probably a response to all of the people saying,
like, you know, "My favorite creator was only in this for half a second,"
and then creators going online and saying, like, "I'm so mad
I went through the effort and I was only in it
for half a second." - (FBE) Do you personally think
it's better to have fewer creators featured?
- I mean, it depends on, really, what kind of experience
you're trying to get. I can understand the frustration
when you're waiting to see your favorite YouTuber
and then all you see is, you know, maybe the side of their nose
for a half second. - As many channels as possible, man,
because, I mean, the YouTube community is so big.
- I would probably say more. It would be cool to show
everyone that's worked so hard. - I think it's better to have
less people but with more screen time,
because these creators are putting aside their time
to do YouTube Rewind. - (FBE) All right, so every year
we cover YouTube Rewind here at FBE.
And we think it's important to use it as a moment to talk
about YouTube at the end of each year
directly from its creators. So, let's talk about
some of the issues that YouTube is facing right now.
- Yes! Okay. - (FBE) It seems like many
are still struggling with the same issues as before
with algorithm changes impacting their channel.
- You know what? It's getting... It's up and down.
It's like playing a game with a child
who keeps changing the rules. - For an Asian,
I don't know how the math works. At this point, I'm kinda like...
fingers crossed. - I don't wanna sound insensitive
to the other creators who are dealing with this,
but YouTube's-- 2018 was a great year for me.
The big issue is that YouTube just needs to communicate.
People are experiencing these problems
and YouTube just leaves them in the dark.
- It does occur to me that the thing that is
doing really well on YouTube right now is something that we happen to make,
and we benefit from that. - That doesn't mean
you can't be creative. - Mm-hmm.
- It just means that there are certain things you need to do
to strategize, take advantage of the system
rather than be beaten by it.
- I understand the whole thing of, you know, "Oh, but,
if they're not watching your content,
then we're not gonna show it. If they're not gonna watch
your content, the more I show up in their feed,
they're not gonna watch it, so they're just gonna unsubscribe."
I would rather have a million subs who are extremely active
than 10 million subs who are dead. - I've taken polls before
and it shows that 60% of my people at least
aren't getting my notification. YouTube says that the reason
they do that is because they've done studies and they show
that, you know, when they send out the notification
for every single video that people unsubscribe
from YouTube notifications altogether and then that hurts everybody.
I try to listen to the business standpoint of it
and not be very selfish, but yeah, I'd love it
if my subscribers got their notifications. (laughs)
- (FBE) Another issue that was big this year
is how more creators are being open about being burned out
and having to take breaks from creating content.
- I've been meaning to make a burnout video
for maybe 30 months now. But if I take even a three-week break,
I'll come back from that and the way YouTube is,
like, "Oh, they're dead!" - Unfortunately, the algorithm
doesn't really favor a healthy work life.
To have people like Courtney and to have a writer
and to have these people that could-- we can all help each other
sustain what we're doing for as long as possible
I think is key. - (FBE) So, before we keep going,
we have to bring this up with you.
Can you both talk about how crazy 2018 has been
for you personally? - (sighs)
- I mean, the craziest thing for us was losing our parent company.
- Yeah. - And basically becoming--
Smosh becoming homeless. We created this great thing
with a great community that I'm not really worried
about it right now. - Who knows where we're gonna be going,
but wherever we're going, we're gonna make sure
that we're doing our best.
- (FBE) Another question we ask every year
is about a mistake or problem that you have with YouTube.
- I mean, to make sure that the people that are subscribed to you
are seeing your videos. - It feels like they really
do suppress anything that has to do with mental health.
- Before, it used to be, "Here's the best content
we can provide." Nowadays, it's "How good
is that person's thumbnail?" We used to laugh about clickbait.
And now, all of a sudden, it's everyone.
- We wanna make sure that as YouTube grows
that the giant companies coming in don't totally bury the smaller ones.
- People wanna watch more negative-based content
than they do positive-based content. Personally, I find it disheartening
when I see all the negativity on YouTube.
- (FBE) And finally, one year from now,
what is your prediction for YouTube?
- Hmm. I mean, I think with the Rock and Will Smith
really being successful on YouTube, I see more celebrities crossing over.
- We all live in Will Smith's house. It's the new Team 10.
- It used to be this community where everyone kind of knew each other
and was collaborating, and now it's not a collaboration.
It's a competition. - Next YouTube Rewind is gonna be
half TikTok stars. - No.
- TikTokers. - Hopefully, there will be
something really exciting happening, like political change
and positive movements, and we're just all
gonna keep our fingers crossed for a really great 2019,
'cause 2018 was a little questionable.
- Thanks for watching YouTubers React to YouTube Rewind.
- To see more of these YouTubers, just subscribe to them.
Links are down below. - (both) Peace out.
- Hey, everyone! Lauren, producer here at FBE.
We just wanna thank all the YouTubers who came in for this episode
to look back at 2018 on YouTube. Thanks so much for checking out
this video and see you next time. Bye!