While it won’t be doing a ‘Rewind’ clip this year, after negative response to its more recent creator compilations, YouTube has today shared an overview of the top videos and creative stars of 2021, highlighting some of the key trends of the year, which could help you develop a better platform strategy.

YouTube’s Top Ten listings are available for 17 specific regions, providing local performance insight and further refining the display, which, again, could help to point you in the right direction to glean insight into what’s working among your target audience.

As you can see here, Mr. Beast unsurprisingly comes out on top, with his ‘buried alive’ video experiment seeing more than 147 million views since March.

Mr. Beast – aka Jimmy Donaldson – is really the template for YouTube success, developing his skills from simple, early experiments, through which he sought to align with the platform’s algorithms, to eventually becoming (arguably) the biggest YouTuber on the planet. Donaldson is projected to bring in around $16 million in direct revenue from YouTube this year, which doesn’t factor in endorsements and other business deals outside of his channel ads.

Of course, not everyone can be Mr. Beast, especially given the money that he can now afford to spend on his most elaborate experiments, but if you were looking for pointers on YouTube success, these clips, and creators, could provide some insights on how to go about it, and viewing their content could inform your own presentation style and format, aligning with broader trends.

Mr. Beast also comes out on top in YouTube’s ‘Creators’ list, while TikTok star ‘KallMeKris’ also makes an appearance, again underlining the rising influence of TikTok on broader shifts.

It’s worth noting too that six of the top ten creators listed here have emerged from the gaming sphere, once again highlighting the significance of gaming as a key driver of web culture. If you’re not paying attention to how gaming influences web trends, you’re missing a major piece of the puzzle, and potentially, major opportunities for your business.

YouTube also highlights the top-performing music clips, as well as rising creators who’ve gained momentum throughout the year, while it also puts specific focus on Shorts, its TikTok clone, which it’s now looking to develop as a key element in the app.

Indeed, YouTube says that Shorts clips are now generating more than 15 billion cumulative views per day, up from 6.5 billion in March, as it continues to expand the format in line with overall video consumption trends, and also, YouTube hopes, as a means to stop users from migrating across to TikTok instead.

The development of Shorts hasn’t seemingly slowed TikTok’s momentum in any way, but by providing a similar platform, YouTube may be able to keep more of its top creators in its app, which will have longer-term benefits in consumption and growth, as popular stars remain more closely aligned with YouTube, and building their channels in the app.

It’s an interesting overview of video trends, and with YouTube being the leading online video provider, it’s really a snapshot of overall web content shifts and interests, capturing the key elements that are driving audience interest right now.

And again, if you are looking for a way into YouTube, and notes for your own approach, these creators and clips could be a good place to start.

You can check out YouTube’s full Top Ten 2021 listings here.