As the year hurtles toward a deadline-driven close, top ten lists of things Kiwis did the most during the year will inevitably stream in. And in keeping with its tradition of breaking down the most popular videos into regions, YouTube has again provided a list of the ten clips that Kiwis were most drawn to over the last year.
Either an indication of how family-oriented Kiwis tend to be or perhaps evidence of the growth in iPad-parenting, the most popular video of the last year was a 43-minute long Peppa Pig compilation. Tallying a total of 69 million views across the world, the video’s popularity coincides with the launch of the YouTube Kids App earlier this year.
Over the weekend at the Devonport Christmas Festival, the Silento track ‘Watch Me’ played several times and also featured in a dance routine by one of the performing groups. And it turns out that the popularity of the song—and the dance moves that accompany it—extends well beyond wealthy colonial suburbs to broader New Zealand, landing a ‘Watch Me’ tutorial second place on YouTube’s list.
The only ad to feature on the list was Air New Zealand’s ‘Men in Black’ safety video, which again reiterates the strong pull of the airlines quirky approach to its safety videos.
Evidence of millennial watching was scattered throughout the list, but no video typified this quite as much as Justin Bieber’s carpool karaoke video, which aired on the The Late Late Show with James Corden.
The top five was completed with a video from another talkshow host, as Jimmy Kimmel’s ‘mean tweets’ segment again won over the eyeballs of local viewers.
The latter five served up a mixed bag, with Jimmy Kimmel’s lip sync battle with Will Ferrell and Kevin Hart coming in sixth, followed by a Star Wars teaser, a Fast & Furious nerd shocking instructors, old men grooving and, lastly, a parody of Frozen’s ‘Let it go’.
While it’s difficult to identify any clear trends in the videos, it’s worth noting that only one of the videos in the list was produced in New Zealand. Kiwi viewing habits on YouTube have a very American flavour, which is only to be expected given that much of the most popular content in the English-speaking world is created in the States. The reality, however, is that when Kiwis have the limitless choice at the disposal, they will invariably gravitate to content that’s good or popular regardless of where it was created.
