Skip to main content

What do yodeling and Kylie Jenner have in common? YouTube’s top 2018 videos

YouTube Rewind 2018: Everyone Controls Rewind | #YouTubeRewind

Where else can you watch kids yodeling in Walmart and bread perfectly tossed into a toaster? On YouTube and its top 10 videos of 2018. On Thursday, December 6, YouTube shared the top 10 trending videos on the platform, with the group reaching more than 673 million views.

Recommended Videos

Headlining the list is Kylie Jenner’s “To Our Daughter,” an 11-minute video on the star’s pregnancy, which was largely kept out of the limelight until after Stormi was born in February. The video has more than 75 million views.

To Our Daughter

Dude Perfect’s second video on Real Life Trick Shots took second on YouTube’s top list of trending videos for the year, as the stars of the channel toss picture frames onto the wall and slice tomatoes with a quick toss into a knife.

Real Life Trick Shots 2 | Dude Perfect

In third, YouTube Vloggers David Dobrik and Liza Koshy shared the news of their break-up in an emotional video with fans. The video had more than 46 million views.

we broke up

In a true nod to the variety found on YouTube, the fourth top trending video is of a kid in Walmart — yodeling. In the video, Mason Ramsey sings to Hank William’s Lovesick Blues with surprising ability, decked out in cowboy boots, a bowtie, and a belt buckle — in aisle 12. The initial video later led Ramsey to more than 300 million views across multiple videos. 

Walmart yodeling kid

The fifth most popular video answered “The Dress” question of 2018 — does that recording say Yanney or Laurel? The creators at AsapScience explain the science of why the internet was divided on that recording.

Do You Hear "Yanny" or "Laurel"? (SOLVED with SCIENCE)

The FIFA World Cup — which were also among the trending topics in 2018 for Facebook and Twitter — was the sixth most popular video, with Match 3 of Portugal versus Spain. YouTubers watched more than 300 million hours of the World Cup this year. 

A video from Primitive Survival Tool on building a swimming pool around an underground house was No. 6 on the list. The YouTube Original Cobra Kai episode one Ace Degenerate, which continues the Karate Kid saga was next on the list, followed by a video by comedian Amit Bhadana and a film from KhangProFilm.

YouTube also shared the list of the biggest music videos of the year — and eight of the 10 are by Latin artists. YouTube says the category has seen major growth after 2017’s release of the song Despacito. Artists on the list include Nio Garcia, Darell, Nicky Jam, Daddy Yankee, and Drake. Girls Like You by Maroon 5 with Cardi B was the No. 1 song globally for the summer. Korean pop band BTS had the biggest debut with the most views in the first 24 hours. The In My Feelings dance challenge, which was also Twitter’s No. 1 tweet, lead to more than 600 million views for the original song by Drake.

Outside the top 10 lists, YouTube also shared a handful of other trends. Fortnite was the second most watched video game globally and broke records for the most game uploaded videos in a single month in February. YouTube’s biggest livestream yet was the SpaceX launch with more than 2.3 million views at one time. That doesn’t top the 11 million views total over the course of one day for the royal wedding livestream, though.

Hillary K. Grigonis
Hillary never planned on becoming a photographer—and then she was handed a camera at her first writing job and she's been…
10 most popular MrBeast YouTube videos, ranked by views
A man points to others in a MrBeast YouTube video.

MrBeast has taken the Internet by storm. Born James Stephen “Jimmy” Donaldson, he’s a 25-year-old YouTube streamer and philanthropist who creates videos with elaborate challenges and big monetary giveaways. His willingness to do ridiculous things and his generous heart are what have struck a chord with viewers.

Donaldson is now the most subscribed-to person on YouTube, with 222 million subscribers (at the time of this writing). He’s also the second-most subscribed YouTube channel overall, behind only the T-Series music channel from India. He became the first person to surpass the children’s educational program CoComelon on the list.

Read more
Best free Christmas movies on YouTube in 2023
die hard movie why is it a christmas classic reginald veljohnson and bruce willis in

In the years before basic cable, decades before the streaming age, Christmas movies were an annual tradition on the broadcast networks. Every year, families or even solo holiday enthusiasts could take comfort in the fact that they would be able to watch some of their favorite Christmas films for free -- assuming they were home in time to watch them. In the present, free movies are becoming scarce among the streamers. But YouTube is filling that void with a plethora of free Christmas movies that you can watch at any time.

Since the holiday season is upon us, we've updated our list of the best free Christmas movies that you can find on YouTube in 2023. The selection may change between now and 2024, but like Santa, we'll be back at least once a year to make sure that everything is still here, while adding even more Christmas cheer from one of the world's biggest streaming platforms.

Read more
7 most popular YouTube music videos of 2023, ranked
Miley Cyrus walks down a road in Flowers.

The sheer volume of content uploaded to YouTube is staggering to consider, and there's no way one person could ever watch it all. Some videos, though, have emerged as the most popular on the service this year.

These may not be the year's best videos, but they were certainly the most popular. They're also all musical, and almost all are in Spanish or affiliated with Latin music. Here's a rundown of the seven most popular videos of the year.
7. Flower by Jisoo – 439 million views
JISOO - ‘꽃(FLOWER)’ M/V

Read more