Ylvis, Chatroulette Guy Among 2013 YouTube Faves

Google just released its roundup of most watched YouTube videos of 2013 and some of you should be ashamed of yourselves.

The top music video of the year was K-Pop star PSY’s “Gentleman M/V”, beating out “Wrecking Ball” and “We Can’t Stop” by the artist formerly known as Hannah Montana, Miley Cyrus. The top trending video across all categories in 2013 was “The Fox” by Ylvis. Seriously.     

“As 2013 comes to a close, these are some of the videos, channels and moments that shaped our year, the company wrote in a Google Blog post. “While each annual list is unpredictable (what's up, Mr. Miley Cyrus impersonator), trending videos just get bigger each year. And with 80 percent of all views on YouTube coming from outside the U.S., the global community is driving pop culture unlike ever before.”

Whether pop culture is benefitting from this massive influx of new YouTube videos is probably a matter of perspective, but who are we to judge? Remember the mostly naked guy on Chatroulette doing a “Wrecking Ball” cover? You made him the fourth most watched YouTube star of 2013 and we hope you’re proud of yourselves. He sure seems to be. 

Notably missing from both the trending and music video roundups is a single Rock song. Even Hip-Hop barely breaks the top 10, appearing only on tracks headlined by Adam Levine and Robin Thicke.

“You watched The Fox more than 275 million times, making it the top trending video of 2013. You also made it a top searched Halloween costume, and you’ll maybe even read it as a children’s book. You turned out in record-setting numbers to see PSY’s post-"Gangnam Style" performance. You even made more “Harlem Shake” videos than there are people in Manhattan (1.7 million videos if you’re counting).”

Sigh.