So there's this trend of Top 10 that's been growing bigger and bigger on youtube and the rest of the internet for the past few years that's annoying me. With youtube channels will literally make top 10s about anything. Spearheading this trend is Watchmojo making such masterpiece as: "Top celebrities who died at age 27" "Top 10 booty songs" and "Top 10 famous bridges". With people just eating it up when in truth making these top 10 lists require next to no actual effort. Yet they get millions of subscribers and earn a ton of money from releasing several of these videos a day in stead of doing something that requires being creative. On top of that having the audacity to say it's "educational" even though it's designed to be watched in bulk being easy to digest and completely forget about within an hour of watching it. Even if that was true what's frustrating is that often times they can't even do that properly. Such as showing digimon footage in a top 10 involving Pokemon. I mean I get releasing videos so frequently you're bound to make some mistakes, but really how do you mess up something that major?

But enough about me. What's your opinion on this rise of Top 10s over the past few years. Do you enjoy these kinds of videos? Or are you as sick and tired of watching them as I am?

I'm sort of in between on them. There are some who do this extremely well. You can tell the top 10 has been well thought out and researched. There are plenty out there though that seem like they googled a top 10 list for something and then grabbed screenshots of said things and decided that was good enough.

It is a lazy way to make youtube content but isn't that basically what the majority of people are doing now? It isn't about creating something unique or interesting but about getting likes and shares and views. If what they do is getting that then they are going to continue doing similar things until that stops working. It's lazy but effective when you've got millions of people who are willing to sit in front of that sort of thing and consume it for hours on end.

Watchmojo is the only top 10 that I like, and for the most part, mistakes aren't their fault because they don't really do any of the stuff themselves. The list, options on the list, order, and footage are all picked by viewers, even a top 10 I suggested was picked a while back, all they do is take what they get and put it together, which is what most channels do that are like talk shows or whatever. Can't really blame them if they put in the wrong footage because it's impossible for them to know every show, movie, and whatever they're talking about.


Also did you see Jacksfilms top 10 top 10 videos video?

geeogree : In the end it's about making money. But you don't have to sacrifice any creativity in order to be successful on youtube. Even things like let's playing requires more effort than Top 10s because usually why people watch those is more for the person hosting it. Thus it requires the person to have an interesting personality, be funny or having interesting commentary about the game. Some people even put their own spin on the concept. While most Top 10 makers like Watchmojo is just stating a short piece of trivia on each entry often having barely researched it. There may be some content creators who decide to try and make it a bit more interesting but they seem to barely exist.

zanderlex : If they don't know the difference between Pokemon and Digimon they shouldn't be making a Top 10 on either in the first place. I'd argue it is their fault because they're just doing it to gain more hits. So yes it's their fault for not picking something they at least know a little bit better in my opinion.

Also I did see it. A very good top 10 video if I ever saw one.

I haven't watched any top 10s in Youtube, at most I read articles in a website that sometimes use top 10s, top 5s or other numbers.

I personally hate all the new Youtube stuff. People just keep seeing this as a form of making a living, but most of them suck at it. If I ever watch a top 10, is because the person or people analyzing it is an/are expert(s) at the field. Just a random guy that doesn't know anything better to do with his life is wasting my time. Not to mention that talking without knowing what you talk about is overly abused in real life.

geeogree : Unboxing started it all. Youtube, and society at large, cannot fall lower than that.

EX Palen : I don't know.... reaction videos... watch me watch something that you've already watched just to see if I react as well (which of course they always do).

geeogree : I was thinking of making another thread on that topic actually. Specifically about those reactors who literally just watch someone else entire video having it on screen while barely adding anything leeching off whatever person made the video. I have seen actual good reactors though who typically only react to certain parts and actually add something to the subject through their commentary like h3h3.

That's literally what YouTube is built for, mindless easy views. If a creator wanted to make something that was more than that, they're going to use a different platform, like how Smosh put their movie on Itunes, or RocketJump moved their recent series to Hulu. 90% of all of YouTube is editing and the rest is improv. The same goes for the viewers, if that's not what viewers wanted, then they'd go watch real tv or a movie, but they don't because that style is actually what works. There's nobody on Youtube who does whatever they do not for the hits unless they are very small.

I'm with what Geeo said on being somewhat split about it. There are the select few that are done extremely well, but many seem like pandering to the lowest common denominator like reality TV does. But I guess it's no different than most things in life. People do things well and make it popular / successful, then a bunch of posers come in and try to sloppily copy it to make a quick buck or gain fame.

As far as reaction videos go... My hate for them would get me banned if I openly ranted about it. (Unboxing is just as bad, if not worse...)

Youtube was not built for mindless easy views. You Zander are the problem.

Youtube was built as a way for content creators to easily distribute their digital video content. Until youtube it was very difficult to do this.

It has changed to where it is today where people aren't creative but instead follow a formula of how to make a video and they do it basically the same way over and over and over again. Name any big channel and their videos are probably 90% the same now. It's boring! Sure they get hits but their content is becoming worse and worse as time goes by.

Exactly, until Youtube there were no other places, and now there are many other more professional ways to do that. It's not that people aren't being creative, its that the people who are smart and want to be creative leave YouTube to go somewhere else.

For me, it depends on the quality. I watch a lot of very well made top ten list. They are well researched, and are very informative. The one thing I hate about top tens though is that they limit information. I would rather have a bunch of facts about the topic in question, like what DYKG does to video games and video game franchises.

You gotta understand, the stuff Watchmojo, or Buzzfeed, or any other site that makes top 10s are clickbait. They're meant to entice the viewer with their thumbnails and titles. As you said, it's stuff that will be quickly digested and forgotten in an hour, 2 tops. I don't really understand the appeal in them when they upload so many videos a day. I just went to Watchmojo's youtube account, and they've uploaded stuff since 11 A.M. every 2 hours. I feel like even if you enjoy their stuff, this would be a huge subscriber burnout.