It’s just a few more weeks before we do the annual countdown to mark off yet another year on the Gregorian calendar and as a tribute to the past 365 days, various social hubs are dishing out their “Year-in-review” videos. We saw Twitter’s a few days ago and while that was filled with statistics about who got the most retweeted and so forth, Facebook’s Year-in-Review video tells the story of hard work and triumph overcoming adversity.
https://vimeo.com/148313339
Facebook highlighted great deal of human suffering, from the refugee crisis in Europe to the Nepal earthquake to last month’s terror attacks in Paris. It is no surprise that 2015 has been one exceptionally difficult year that had our heartstrings plucked like Santana’s guitar and as a result this makes Facebook’s tagline “Let’s stand together in 2016” something we should strive for.
The Facebook tribute video, while paying homage to the crises that plagued us over the past year, also included tidbits from Star Wars: The Force Awakens, Game of Thrones and Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson.
YouTube Rewind also came out with their 2015 edition and it’s probably the best of the YouTube rewinds so far. Absent from it is any sign of the struggles evident in Facebook’s Year-in-Review, since it has always focused on YouTube stars and what trended on YouTube.
YouTube has been doing year-end “Rewind” videos since 2010, but only since 2012 has it been doing large-scale musical productions with special effects, big-name personalities and a mix of some of the year’s biggest hits, which unfortunately included the headache inducing title “Watch Me (Whip/Nae-Nae)”. Song aside, the choreography was spot on with the likes of Superwoman Lily Singh making an appearance along with Markiplier who was sporting a pink hairdo for charity. Of course, no YouTube Rewind is complete without the King of Youtube Felix Kjellberg AKA Pewdiepie and he rightfully made an appearance in the video as well. There were a range of cameos, the most jolting of which were T-Pain on a blow-up dolphin and, naturally, Rebecca Black in that car from “Friday.” Of course in the end we saw that the whole video was merely a react for The Fine Bros.
YouTube released the video alongside its Trending Tab announcement, a feature that will make it easier for viewers to find videos that are bubbling up in popularity, using an algorithm that collects videos based on comments, views, and location.
