YouTube already has a replacement for Rewind: ESCAPE2021

We could already imagine it last year, and finally, in October, YouTube confirmed that its annual compilation, the once very popular Rewind, had come to an end. 

This is not something that should surprise us, in truth. If we retrieve the numbers of its latest editions, Rewind 2019, 48 hours after its publication, had already become the third video on the platform with the most negative votes. Rewind 2018 was not better, with 2.9 million favorable ballots versus 18 million negative ratings. We had to go back to 2017 to see more positive votes, 4.5 million, than negative, 2.3 million.

I recognize that when YouTube stopped showing negative votes, I saw the possibility that they would consider recovering the format, although with a new name and some change, but in the end, it will not be like that. Instead, and as the company itself has reported, instead of the traditional compilation this year, what it will offer is a 24-hour live and interactive event that will take place on December 16 and begin at six in the morning (Spanish peninsular time).

And good news, the event will take place in several languages, including Spanish. Here’s the complete list: English, German, Korean, Spanish, French, Indonesian, English, Japanese, and Portuguese.

The event will be repeated in three large blocks, or chapters, as YouTube calls them, in which videos and information related to everything that happened this year will be shown (it should be understood that with particular attention to what was experienced on the platform itself).

In addition, the audience will participate in a kind of question and answer game. The reward for winning? Access “surprise” musical performances. And I quote it because it has already been leaked that, among these artists, could be the hyper-popular Korean boyband BTS and the Californian rapper Doja Cat.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eJRHqCRvD0c&ab_channel=YouTube

The model of repeating the event in several time slots adopted by YouTube reminds us of the one already used, for example, by Fornite with the Rift Tour of the singer Ariana Grande, which had no less than five passes distributed throughout the weekend that lasted the event.

Therefore, we are talking with a significant probability of a false direct that will offer us actions in real-time, such as the game of questions and answers.

I don’t think anyone will be surprised that YouTube has opted for live mode rather than video accessible on demand (although it is expected to be offered in this format later). As we have already told you on several occasions, YouTube observes Twitch and other streaming services with great attention, to which many of its YouTubers have moved.

For the last two years, he has been working on measures to improve the platform’s live functions, and now by replacing Rewind with a live one, he seems to intend to underpin this strategy further.