'Gangnam Style,' 'Barack vs Mitt' among YouTube's champs
The top trending videos of the year took us around the world with "Gangnam Style" and a rap of "Barack vs Mitt," and up into space with Felix Baumgartner's supersonic free fall.
YouTube watchers kept busy this year checking out videos related to "Gangnam Style," the presidential elections, and Facebook parenting for the troubled teen.
Rewinding back through 2012, YouTube yesterday posted its list of the Top 10 trending videos for the year.
A video devoted to Korea's "Gangnam Style" craze took the top spot. A music video of the song "Somebody that I Used to Know" by Canadian band Walk off the Earth took second place.
Going viral and taking third place was Kony 2012, a video campaign urging the capture and arrest of Ugandan militia leader Joseph Kony, on the run after his indictment for war crimes.
A music video of "Call Me Maybe" by Carly Rae Jepsen was next on the list.
In fifth place was a rap take on the presidential election, featuring actors portraying Barack Obama and Mitt Romney engaged in a rapper's debate to see who emerges the winner.
The next video started with a large red button placed in a simple square in a town in Belgium, which was soon followed by the chaos of an ambulance, a fight, a police shooting, football players, and a woman on a motorcycle with not much in the way of clothes. In the end, it all turned out to be a promo for TNT.
Video No. 7 was called "Why you asking all them questions," while video No. 8 featured a violin performance among landscapes of snow and ice.
In ninth place was the infamous video of a father who wasn't too happy with his daughter's latest Facebook comment and shot up her laptop in response.
And finally, Felix Baumgartner's supersonic free fall from 128,000 feet above the earth closed out the list.
YouTube seemed impressed by the variety of videos that made the list.
"Millions of creators are using YouTube channels to experiment with innovative forms of entertainment, explore their passions and interests, and take creativity and pop culture to new levels," YouTube said in yesterday's blog. "2012's top trending videos showcase this creative ingenuity in ways we'd never before thought possible."