Skip to main content

Get your YouTube fix right here with the top trending vids of 2015

YouTube Rewind: Now Watch Me 2015 | #YouTubeRewind
YouTube, the video goliath of our age, has revealed the top trending videos on the site for 2015. From catchy dance moves, to epic lip syncing battles, singing in cars, and mean Tweets, both music and television reigned supreme on YouTube’s annual list.

The videos are selected based on the amount of time people spent watching, sharing, commenting, and liking them. The collection includes top 10 lists for regular videos, as well as music videos. In total, the videos that made the cut were viewed for more than 25 million hours, and created by channels that enjoy over 40 million subscribers among them. We’ve pulled some of our favorites from the list and gathered them here for your viewing pleasure (you know you needed a work distraction anyway), so enjoy!

Related Videos

Related: Weed, sex, and race relations headline Chelsea Handler’s new docuseries on Netflix

TV/late night fun

It’s clear the new slate of late night TV talk show hosts are making their mark in the digital world, as three entries on the top-10 list are courtesy of segments that went viral from Jimmy Fallon, James Corden, and Jimmy Kimmel.

The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon’s hilarious lip sync battle with Will Ferrell and Kevin Hart came in at number-five, as Ferrell kept viewers in stitches, glued to the screen to see his best Beyonce impression.

Lip Sync Battle with Will Ferrell, Kevin Hart and Jimmy Fallon

Justin Bieber’s Carpool Karaoke with James Corden on The Late Late Show with James Corden ranked right behind at number-six, where the pair belted out some of the pop singer’s latest tunes as they danced in sync with the music, and discussed some of the more compelling lyrics, like “eat fondu,” and the meaning behind them.

Justin Bieber Carpool Karaoke

And Jimmy Kimmel Live! made the cut as well with the President Obama edition of the popular Mean Tweets segment whereby celebrities (and apparently also politicians) read aloud real Tweets that actual Twitter users have written about them to the somber R.E.M. tune Everybody Hurts playing in the background.

Mean Tweets - President Obama Edition

A fourth television moment also made the list: the Golden boy Calum Scott’s audition on week-one of Britain’s Got Talent. In the clip, the clearly nervous young man wins over the judge’s hearts as he mesmerizes them and viewers with his clear, incredible voice right after his sister failed to make the cut. The audition got all the more attention because it prompted tough judge Simon Cowell to skip the critique altogether and press his “golden buzzer” to send Scott straight through to the live shows.

Golden boy Calum Scott hits the right note | Audition Week 1 | Britain's Got Talent 2015

Music Videos

Music videos are also a huge part of YouTube, and 2015 broke records for some of the fastest-rising videos of all time. Wiz Khalifa’s See You Again reached over one-billion views in just six months. And even though her new song Hello only just recently came out a few weeks ago, Adele managed to make the list in the number-nine spot.

Wiz Khalifa - See You Again ft. Charlie Puth [Official Video] Furious 7 Soundtrack

Rounding out the top 10 music videos on YouTube for 2015 were Maroon 5’s Sugar; Ellie Goulding (Love Me Like You Do; Major Lazer & DJ Snake – Lean On (feat. MØ); Taylor Swift – Bad Blood ft. Kendrick Lamar; David Guetta – Hey Mama ft Nicki Minaj, Bebe Rexha & Afrojack; Sia – Elastic Heart feat. Shia LaBeouf & Maddie Ziegler; Fifth Harmony – Worth It ft. Kid Ink; and Silentó – Watch Me (Whip/Nae Nae).

Altogether, the top 10 music videos garnered more than 66 million subscribers, and people spent the equivalent of over 37,000 years watching them over the last 12 months.

Random viral vids

Also on the list are several viral videos, including Tianne King’s dance group doing Silento – Watch Me (Whip/Nae Nae); the Super Bowl commercial Clash of Clans: Revenge; Crazy Plastic Ball PRANK!! by RomanAtwood; and the Dover Police “DashCam Confessional” in which the Dover boys in blue get down to Tay-Swift’s Shake it Off, among others you’ve likely seen while slacking off at work.

Silento- Watch Me (Whip/Nae Nae) #WatchMeDanceOn

To make following the most popular videos a little easier going forward, YouTube has launched its new Trending tab within the iOS, Android, and desktop app, which shows the top-trending videos so you can watch them immediately — because who has time for work?

Editors' Recommendations

NFL Sunday Ticket: how to watch on YouTube and YouTube TV
NFL Sunday Ticket info for YouTube TV as seen on a phone.

Now that Patrick Mahomes and the Kansas City Chiefs have been crowned the winners of Super Bowl LVII and closed out the 2022-23 season, it's time to turn our attention to next season. Because there are going to be some massive changes. First, there's no more Tom Brady. And second is that NFL Sunday Ticket will no longer be on DirecTV and is making the leap to YouTube and YouTube TV.

That's a big deal for a couple of reasons. It'll make NFL Sunday Ticket — which lets you watch pretty much any NFL game you want every week — available to far more people because it no longer will be shackled to satellite TV. Dish TV has slowly been losing subscribers and was down to 7.6 million as of October 2022. Meanwhile, YouTube TV last reported more than 5 million subscribers in mid-2022. (The company doesn't regularly give updates on subscription totals.) And then there's YouTube proper, whose availability and popularity are hard to quantify in the same terms as traditional television numbers because it's just there.

Read more
NFL Sunday Ticket may get typical YouTube community features
NFL on YouTube TV.

The 2022-23 NFL season is about to wrap up with the Super Bowl, and there are many months until the next installment. That also means there's quite some time before we see NFL Sunday Ticket make the leap to Google-owned YouTube and YouTube TV.

But we're already starting to glean a few more details as to the future of NFL Sunday Ticket, which until this year has lived solely on DirecTV.

Read more
Celebrate our 1,000,000 YouTube subscriber milestone with us and win!
YouTube Subscriber Giveaway

Digital Trends 1,000,000 YouTube Subscriber Giveaway!

We did it! On November 27, 2022, the Digital Trends YouTube channel reached a major milestone: 1 million subscribers! We’ve been counting down for weeks, and now that the moment has finally arrived, we’re ready to celebrate with those who helped us get here (you!) by giving away more than $4,500 in prizes!

Read more