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YouTube Rewind 2018 becomes site’s most disliked video

The annual recap video has now surpassed Justin Bieber’s Baby for the number of dislikes on a post.

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(John Stillwell/PA)

YouTube’s annual recap video of the year’s biggest trends on the platform has become the most disliked post in the site’s history.

YouTube Rewind 2018 has now been disliked more than 10 million times by users of the platform, taking it past the official music video for Justin Bieber’s 2010 song Baby.

Rewind 2018 features a number of famous content creators from the site taking part in a real-life game of Fortnite while referencing a number of big trends from the platform’s last 12 months.

However, the video has been widely criticised since its upload last week for omitting a range of prominent YouTubers, including PewDiePie, the most-subscribed-to personality on the site.

In his own response to the Rewind video, the vlogger – real name Felix Kjellberg – said it was “so disconnected from the community and its creators”, a sentiment echoed by many YouTube users in the video’s comments section.

“I remember Rewind was something that seemed like a homage to the creators that year,” he said.

“It was something cool to be a part of. Now it’s like I’m almost glad I’m not in it, because it’s such a cringey video at this point.”

Another well-known figure from the platform, Marques Brownlee – who does appear in the video – said that while it was an “honour” to be involved in the video, there had been a “shift in sentiment” towards it.

In his own reaction post, he suggested the site’s community and YouTube now itself saw the video as two different things – with users believing it should be “a big celebration” of what happened on the site that year.

However, Brownlee suggested the site itself now saw it as a chance to showcase “all the best stuff that happens on YouTube for advertisers”.

“YouTube Rewind, in a way, just turned into a giant ad for YouTube,” he said.

The video was praised by some commenters for its diversity and its embracing of a range of cultures, but many responses were negative, with one labelling it “devoid of anything YouTube”.

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