YouTube publishes Culture & Trends report

YouTube has published its "Culture and Trends" report, which includes insights from 10 countries to provide perspective on what’s driving the latest video trends, and how that can relate to businesses digital marketing strategies.

The report looks at three trends: Community Creativity, Multi-format Creativity and Responsive Creativity.

In its introduction, YouTube says, "The pop culture landscape was varied, and a new type of online video creator was rising in prominence, but everyone experienced digital culture in basically the same way.

"Now, pop culture is all about you. We still have viral videos, but single videos are comparatively less likely to achieve broad cultural breakthrough."

According to YouTube, new video formats and technologies have grown massively in the last five years. It said 85 percent of Gen Z users have posted video content online. Gen Z is defined as someone born between 1981 and 1996 (or people from ages 26-41 in 2022).

YouTube also acknowledge the COVID-19 pandemic has "reshaped our relationship with video and accelerated a number of long-term trends."

Here is some data to consider:

• 65 percent of Gen Z agree that content that's personally relevant to them is more important than the content that lots of other people are talking about.
• 55 percent of Gen Z agree that they watch content that no one they know personally is interested in.
• 63 percent of Gen Z followed one or more meme accounts in the past 12 months. "Producing and consuming remixable content - often as memes - is a major way that Gen Z and millennials participate in pop culture," the report said.
• 57 percent of Gen Z agree that they like it when brands participate in memes.
• 59 percent of Gen z agree that they use short-form video apps to discover things that they then watch longer versions of.
• 69 percent of Gen z agree that they often find themselves return to creators or content that feels comforting to them.