YouTube’s 2012 trends: Gangnam style reigns supreme

Popular video sharing site YouTube has released its top trending videos for the year and its no surprise that South Korean sensation PSY is at the top of the list. According to the site, when it looked back at the year that was, it found that Korean pop music crossed borders worldwide.

This comes as part of YouTube’s Rewind channel: an annual channel that looks back at the year on YouTube, similar to Google’s Zeitgeist.

According to an official blog post:

This year, Korean Pop music transcended boundaries and took the world by storm. Cover songs, parodies, and “do-it-yourself” music videos from all genres entertained us in countries near and far. And you participated in conversations at a global scale, uploading videos to share ideas on everything from nonprofit campaigns, to political satire, to new and surprising voices and talents. Plus, all over the world, you tuned in for the most up-to-date news footage of presidential elections, natural disasters and more.

It’s quite cool to see the likes of Gotye’s popular “Somebody That I Used to Know” and Felix Baumgartner make it on to the is list.

This has been a big year for the video sharing site with users watching over 4-billion hours of video a month. With the rebrand and redesign and more of a cash injection into its original content channels, YouTube has been busy this year.

“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. 2012’s top trending videos showcase this creative ingenuity in ways we’d never before thought possible,” says the service.

YouTube’s Rewind page is up and running and users can go check out the top videos in their region.

Below are the top 10 trending videos for 2012 (globally).

1. PSY – GANGNAM STYLE (강남스타일) M/V

2. Somebody That I Used to Know – Walk off the Earth (Gotye – Cover)

3. KONY 2012

4. “Call Me Maybe” by Carly Rae Jepsen – Feat. Justin Bieber, Selena, Ashley Tisdale & MORE!

5. Barack Obama vs Mitt Romney. Epic Rap Battles Of History Season 2

6. A DRAMATIC SURPRISE ON A QUIET SQUARE

7.WHY YOU ASKING ALL THEM QUESTIONS? .. #FCHW

8. Dubstep Violin- Lindsey Stirling- Crystallize

9. Facebook Parenting: For the troubled teen.

10. Felix Baumgartner’s supersonic freefall from 128k’ – Mission Highlights

YouTube also commissioned users to produce a mashup of Gangnam style title “Rewind YouTube Style 2012”. See video below.