YouTube’s 2012

YouTube Rewind 2012 was the kind of pointless thing the internet did because it could. A highlight reel of viral videos from the year, as if the internet needed a corporate recap of moments everyone was already tired of. Rebecca Black, some gaming clips, whatever passed for a meme in 2012. It wasn’t good, it wasn’t particularly memorable, but you watched it anyway because it was there. There’s something almost innocent about YouTube even trying—the idea that they could curate the year, that this compilation meant anything. It didn’t. But looking back, that kind of earnest futility is kind of charming.