Video-sharing website YouTube just announced the Most Watched YouTube Videos for the last 12 months. To create the list, the social website used various statistics including views, searches, shares, responses and even remixes and parodies. In other words, all the user activity that was triggered by the video.
In comparison to previous years, when the top spots on the chart were taken by simple low-quality home-shot videos, in 2012 people preferred to watch videos that showed more originality and quality.
Let’s quickly take a look at 10 most watched YouTube videos in 2012.
Psy – ‘Gangnam Style’ – Korean musician Psy managed to hypnotize the entire world with his dance moves and catchy sound. Although the video for the song ‘Gangnam Style’ was uploaded on YouTube only half a year ago, it already became the most watched video in the history of the website. Soon it is expected to get a total of one billion views. If that happens, ‘Gangnam Style’ will be the first ever YouTube content to do that!
Walk off the Earth – ‘Somebody That I Used to Know’ – This is a very interesting cover of Gotye’s hit single ‘Somebody That I Used to Know’. The band Walk off the Earth consists of five members. However, to cover the song they used only one guitar. A bit crowded, don’t you think?
KONY 2012 – The goal of this short movie was to speed up the arrest of the leader of Uganda’s Lord’s Resistance Army, Joseph Kony. The video accumulated a record number of views in one day – over 30 million.
‘Call Me Maybe’ – Justin Bieber, Selena Gomez, Carlos Pena – No, we are not talking about the original video to Carly Rae Jepsen’s song ‘Call Me Maybe’. This is a cover of the tune made by Justin Bieber, his ex-girlfriend Selena Gomez and couple of their buddies. Actually, this is not even a cover since the gang only lip-syncs to the song.
Epic Rap Battles – Obama vs. Romney – This video was launched at the peak of the U.S. presidential battle between candidates Barack Obama and Mitt Romney. In the clip, two look-a-likes of the candidates perform a very entertaining rap song.
A Dramatic Surprise on a Quiet Experiment – This is one very original and fun commercial. The video’s purpose is to promote TNT, but viewers learn that at its very end. It resembles a candy camera show in which a button is placed in the middle of a “quiet square”. Whenever someone pushes it, drama comes!
Emmanuel Hudson – ‘Questions’ – In this video Emmanuel Hudson, a comedian, performs a song that tells some of his love problems. The video quickly gained popularity. A curious fact about it is that it got about 20 million views only from mobile devices.
Lindsey Sterling – ‘Crystallize’ – This is a track that successfully combines two, at first look, completely different genres – Dubstep and classic music!
Facebook Parenting: For the troubled teen – In the video a father shares to the world his reaction to his daughter’s Facebook post. Apart from becoming very watched, the clip also triggered a wave of disputes.
Felix Baumgartner’s Supersonic Free fall – The video offers highlights from Baumgartner’s historic jump from the height of 128,100 feet (39,045 meters) or, as many called it, “a free fall from the edge of space”.
And here is the most watched video from our own records:
