Scripted comedy aimed at juveniles was the most popular type of YouTube clip among Australians this year, with only one news related video making the top 10 – footage of police wrestling a young man to the ground during the Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras.
This clip had 1.9 million hits and was one of two Australian-made clips in the list, the other being The Difference Between Wogs and Aussies: Clubbing, which was the 5th most watched with 1.6 million hits.
Overall the top clip in Australia this year was The Fox by Norwegian brothers known as Ylvis; and the second most popular, with 88.7 million hits globally, was How Animals Eat Their Food, by comedy duo MisterEpicMann.
With 275.4 million hits globally, The Fox song makes fun of the lack of known sounds that come from foxes and shows young Norwegians at a fancy dress party and dancing in a lush forest. Three of the top 10 videos watched by Australians came from Scandinavia, and the rest were made in North America.
Google released the list of most popular YouTube clips for Australians as part of a globally co-ordinated media release. Next week it plans to reveal the most searched-for terms on its website.
The music videos most watched by Australians on YouTube were Miley Cyrus’ Wrecking Ball, in which Ms Cyrus swings naked on industrial equipment, Psy’s clip Gentleman, and Katy Perry’s Roar. Robin Thicke, Pink, Rihanna, One Direction and Naughty Boy also made it into the top 10.
Google also revealed which YouTube channels made by Australians gained the most new subscribers from around the world during the year.
The fastest rising Australian channel was by an 18-year old actor and singer called Troye Sivan, who has been posting monologues and songs on YouTube since late 2012. He now has 1.2 million sub-scribers to his TroyeSivan18 channel and regularly answers questions posed to him on Twitter.
“I feel like a lot of you guys are like real genuine friends of mine. And I share everything with the internet. I share every aspect of my life with the internet. Whether or not that is a good thing, I don’t know,” Troye told his viewers in an August clip titled Coming Out.
The other channels rapidly gaining viewers were Jayesslee, two singers who used YouTube to launch their music career in 2008 and now have 1.6 million viewers; science channel Veritasium; boy band 5 Seconds of Summer’s channel hemmo1996; and CommunityChannel by Natalie Tran, with 1.4 million viewers.
