Since its introduction in 2016, Spotify Wrapped has turn out to be a bona fide year-event Occasion™. Folks discuss their customized sum-ups for weeks earlier than and after its debut, and although some inevitably discover the completed product underwhelming, Spotify has largely monopolized the medium by together with distinctive parts like thank-you clips from artists, and has primed Wrapped for social media sharing through the use of individuals’s listening histories to kind them into astrology-style, hashtaggable cohorts.
This 12 months, for the primary time, YouTube is attempting its personal model of Wrapped. Referred to as YouTube Recap, it’s basically the identical factor: a customized spotlight reel that YouTube says “supplies customers with a enjoyable, shareable abstract of their particular person viewing journey over the 12 months.”
Whereas Recap is YouTube’s first time giving customers their very personal EOY reels, it’s, after all, not the primary time Google’s video platform has tried to cap off the 12 months with a look-back.Subscribe to get the most recent creator newsSubscribe
As you most likely bear in mind, YouTube used to launch an annual house-made manufacturing referred to as Rewind. The thought was to encapsulate a full 12 months of YouTube tradition in a single video, giving nods to top-watched creators, defining traits and memes, and uberviral songs (“Friday,” “What Does the Fox Say?” and “Gangnam Fashion” obtained spotlights). It was an nearly archaeological endeavor, memorializing little Dada-esque bubbles of web existence that, 500 years from now, will make historians marvel what substances a big portion of the inhabitants was rockin’ out with.
It was additionally extremely divisive.
Lower than per week after its debut, Rewind 2018 turned YouTube’s most-disliked video ever. (This was again earlier than they eliminated public dislikes.) Viewers’ core criticism was that YouTube had determined to spotlight conventional celebrities like Will Smith and John Oliver whereas leaving out main creators like PewDiePie and Shane Dawson (who’d had controversial incidents however had been nonetheless undeniably the largest names on the platform), and ignoring creator occasions just like the Logan Paul vs KSI match.
On the time, YouTuber Marques Brownlee neatly summarized creators’ criticisms: “YouTube Rewind, in a means, simply was a large advert for YouTube.”
This is smart, as a result of YouTube had simply been by the Adpocalypse, and was laser-focused on attempting to maintain advertisers completely happy. However its try to push model security enchantment to huge media patrons was what did Rewind in. For 2019’s look-back, YouTube ditched the video format and skirted problems with omission by publishing a sequence of purely data-driven lists. For 2020, it cancelled any type of EOY recap, citing the COVID pandemic and associated monetary and social stressors.
Then, in 2021, information got here down: YouTube was shelving Rewind completely.
“Since Rewind began in 2011, we’ve seen creators from MrBeast, elrubiusOMG, and Slayy Level, to so many extra, create their very own end-of-year movies, uniquely capturing the 12 months from every of their views,” YouTube informed Tubefilter on the time. “It’ll proceed to be inspiring to see the myriad of the way essentially the most artistic content material producers on the planet–our YouTube creators–encapsulate the top of 12 months of their video recaps, as YouTube retires its personal Rewind video.”
So Rewind could also be gone, however it’s not forgotten: It’s again within the information cycle proper now thanks to 2 issues:
OG YouTuber NigaHiga stated his experiences on the Rewind set weren’t nice
YouTube unceremoniously privated all Rewind movies so individuals can’t watch them anymore.
Unclear whether or not the latter is said to the previous, or to YouTube’s rollout of Recap, however it occurred.
And YouTube hasn’t been capable of let go of wrap-ups fully.
The brand new iteration provides every viewer a reel with as much as 12 “playing cards” that present their high channels, pursuits, “viewing behavior evolution,” and a distinctly Spotify-y “persona kind” primarily based on watch historical past. Of us who use YouTube Music may even get their high artists and songs, plus “choices to dive deeper into genres and podcasts through the YouTube Music app,” a YouTube rep says. (We’re not saying for this reason YouTube’s doing Recap, however it’s price noting YouTube and Spotify are in heated competitors for the video podcast area.)
Sadly, no less than for us, YouTube’s 2025 Recap hasn’t been working. It’s presupposed to pop up in a person’s “You” tab, however regardless of communication with YouTube, we’re nonetheless not seeing something.
YouTube stated some issues may cause customers to overlook out on the Recap, together with:
not having “ample eligible watch historical past” from January to late October 2025
having your watch historical past paused whereas the Recap is being generated, or having your historical past auto-delete set decrease than one 12 months
and eventually, not having “a ample range of subjects and creators”
All of those factors are a bit of imprecise, and we discover it irritating that having your watch historical past briefly paused on the incorrect second will derail a whole 12 months’s price of wrap-up. We’ve seen other people having related points, and a few individuals who have gotten their Recaps have accused it of being “AI slop” that’s not consultant of their exercise.
Whether or not Recap sticks round or goes the way in which of Rewind, it’s apparent individuals are taking note of YouTube’s EOY reels. They wish to look again on their favourite content material of the 12 months. Platforms simply should allow them to.
