Die Antwoord steals the show on YouTube for 2010

For the year of 2010 South Africans watched clips dominated by music and politics on YouTube, with Afrikaans trailer-trash rap group Die Antwoord stealing the show as one of the most watched for the year.

Die Antwoord’s singles ‘Enter the Ninja‘ racked up a massive 8,6-million views, while ‘Zef Side‘ received 5,2-million views.

Other local videos that drew significant interest included ‘6 Second Poison’ by Locnville (667,170) , ‘Show Dem – Make the Circle Bigger (223,944) and Jack Parow’s ‘Dans, Dans, Dans’ featuring Francois van Coke Y (419,100).

South Africa saw the launch of a local YouTube domain in April 2010, the first in Africa. Since then, the country has been able to browse and find more locally relevant content, whilst still accessing their favourite global viral videos.

Political and current affairs clips were also a local favourite. Popular clips included the AWB’s ungraceful exit from an eNews studio during a live interview (338,438) and ANCYL Youth League president Julius Malema dismissing a BBC journalist from a press conference (174,684). Whilst the AWB incident prompted the ‘Don’t Touch me on my Studio’ remix (91,568) Malema’s reaction inspired the creation of the popular ‘Julius Malema Song’ (117,621).

“Videos on YouTube come from regular users, emerging online studios, the largest of media companies and more. YouTube has truly leveled the playing field for all content creators,” said Julie Taylor, Communications Manager, Google Sub-Saharan Africa. “This year’s big local trends and global lists offer a glimpse at the tremendous growth YouTube has experienced as a company and as an online community in 2010.”

This year, more than 13 million hours of video — approximately 1,500 years — were uploaded to YouTube and more than 700 billion videos were viewed via the site. YouTube’s official Year-End 2010 Lists, available below, highlight some of the YouTube videos people around the world were buzzing about over the last twelve months.

List of the most popular SA clips

Die Antwoord

Locnville

Make The Circle bigger

Jack Parow

Dont Touch me on my studio

Malema BBC Journo