YouTube Trends

Introducing the YouTube Trends Map

2013-05-07T06:00:00.000-04:00

Are teens in the South watching the same videos as middle-aged folks in New England? Now with the YouTube Trends Map (youtube.com/trendsmap), you can see today’s most popular videos in major markets across the U.S. You can also see what’s popular with women or men, as well as by different age groups.

The Trends Map is the result of all the great feedback you’ve given us from the Trends Dashboard, as we keep working to help you find great videos and channels on YouTube. For now, the Trends Map is only available for the U.S., but stay tuned for updates.

Check out the Trends Map FAQ for any questions, and happy trend-tracking!

PSY's 'Gentleman' Raises the Bar

2013-04-22T18:30:00.000-04:00

Everyone knew the followup to PSY's massive (if unlikely) international hit "Gangnam Style" would draw lots of attention. But considering the assumption-defying nature of PSY's breakout popularity and massive anticipation, it was hard to predict just how big that spike in interest would be. One week and around 200 million views later, the results are in.

PSY already holds the record for the most viewed video of all time -- Gangnam Style now has an incredible 1.5 billion views -- but now he also set the record for the most views ever in a single day with the over 38 million "Gentleman" achieved on April 14th. Here's a chart of the incredible daily viewership so far:

Not surprisingly, PSY's new single quickly became April's top rising search on YouTube -- with worldwide interest first peaking on Monday April 15 and remaining high since -- and debuted at #1 on YouTube's music chart, bumping his previous hit to #2.

From a stats perspective, it's one of the biggest music video launches the web has ever seen. For some added perspective, "Gentleman" was seen 100 million times in less than 4 days in regions all over the world, a milestone that it took "Gangnam Style" nearly two months to achieve:

The previous single-day record was set by KONY 2012 last March.

Note: 24-hour period measured via PST.

Rise of the Ridiculous Prank Channel

2013-04-01T18:09:00.001-04:00

Happy April Fools Day, everyone!

Pranking and prank videos have been a part of online video culture from the start. For YouTube, the popularity of some classic videos -- Rickroll anyone? -- was entirely based around prank behavior. Jimmy Kimmel helped bring crowd-sourced video pranking to the masses and fads like coning spread from one country to the next.

But over the past few years, we've also started to see another trend emerging: prank channels. Entire channels devoted to terrorizing and harassing innocent people. Here's a chart of the monthly viewcount for just the top 10 of these channels.

So what are the top 10? By our rough estimation, we'd designate these 10 channels -- whose videos have been watched around 3.5 billion times combined -- as the heaviest producers of consistent popular prank videos:

Want more? Check out this playlist for a selection of 10 of the top trending prank videos of all time. Watch them all below or click here to see the list.

YouTube Searches Now on Google Trends

2013-03-20T00:30:00.000-04:00

Here's a trivia question: Based on YouTube searches, what was the top trending animal on YouTube this month in the United States? It's not what you might think...

Yes, goats. (If you missed this one and want to know more about how exactly screaming goats became so popular this month, here's one video that discusses the whole phenomenon.)

Google Trends enables you to take popular search queries and explore traffic patterns over time and geography. Now we've added YouTube search data going back to 2008, making it another great tool to look at video trends. Visit Google Trends and enter any search you'd like and then, on the left, choose "limit to" for YouTube. You can slice by region or category as well.

Search query interest can often provide a more detailed picture into the life of a trend or topic. For example: for those of you wondering whether the "Harlem Shake" is over... it's not.

You can also see interesting seasonal patterns. For example, cooking searches for "turkey" in the US see dramatic spikes every November as people scramble to remember exactly how to prep that big meal before the relatives arrive.

And Rebecca Black searches spike once each week. Guess which day...

Head over to Google Trends and see what other interesting YouTube searches you can find.

The Harlem Shake Has Exploded (Updated)

2013-02-12T19:29:00.002-05:00

Depending on your frame of reference, the "Harlem Shake" is best known as dance move from the 1980s, a dance track by Baauer, or the biggest web video trend of the month. If you need to get caught up to speed, here's a playlist of some of the most-popular iterations of it from the past few days.

The meme first started gaining traction last week and is attributed to a silly video from a vlogger named "Filthy Frank." Though it was another user named SunnyCoastSkate who then established the form we've become familiar with: the jump cut, the helmet, etc.

From there, the spin-offs spread very quickly. As of the 11th, around 12,000 "Harlem Shake" videos had been posted since the start of the month and they'd already been watched upwards of 44 million times. As you can see in the chart below, over 4,000 of these videos are being uploaded per day and that number is still likely on the rise.

One of the unique directions the trend took rather early was spawned by the staff of Maker Studios, who created what's currently the currently most-viewed version from their office. While it could have just remained a college-kid fad, Maker's version helped signal that the trend was something any organization or office could be a part of, with other companies joining them like...

College Humor	The Chive

Break	Buzzfeed

Musicians Matt and Kim produced a pretty epic one that's been circulated widely on social media. It's been performed by the young... and the old.

Some of the many subgroups we've seen are swim teams and U.S. service academies, and there are plenty more on the way, we're sure.

Update (2/15): It turns out plenty more were on the way. As of Valentine's day the number of "Harlem Shake" videos has increased to around 40,000 -- based on video title -- and those videos now have 175 million views. Here's an update to the above chart:

Best of 2012: Top Lists of Trending and Popular Videos

2013-01-04T18:29:00.000-05:00

As we officially start a new year of trending videos in 2013, let's take a look back at the most-popular and top trending videos across a wide variety of interesting YouTube video categories that helped make 2012 the year that it was!

(Click through to view playlists)


Top 10 Trending Science Videos of 2012	Top Trending Sports Videos of 2012	Top 10 How-to and DIY Videos of 2012

Top 10 Eye-Popping Videos of 2012	Top 10 Cover Videos of 2012	Top 10 Awe-Inspiring Videos of 2012

Top Trending Beauty Videos of 2012	Top Trending Comedy Videos of 2012	Top 10 Pet Videos of 2012

Top 10 Political Videos of 2012	Top 10 Gaming Culture Videos of 2012	Top 10 Holiday Videos of 2012

And, in case you missed it, here's our recap of the top overall trending videos of the year.

Gangnam Style Crosses One Billion View Mark

2012-12-21T16:22:00.003-05:00

This post originally appeared on the Official YouTube Blog

A million views? You know what's cool? A billion views.

Today, a 34-year-old K-Pop artist made online video history when his viral video, Gangnam Style, smashed all our records and became the first video ever to reach one billion views. Yup, that’s right one BILLION views!

PSY's success is a great testament to the universal appeal of catchy music-- and er, great equine dance moves. In the past, music distribution was mostly regional. It was more difficult to learn about great artists from around the world. But with a global platform at their fingertips, people are now discovering and sharing amazing music from all over the planet, by artists like Brazilian Michel Teló and Belgian-Australian Gotye.

One billion views is an incredible number, but the PSY-nomenon goes beyond that. Check out these stats:

PSY was already big in Korea, but in 2012, he became a global celeb as Gangnam Style quickly spread from Seoul and the pacific to North America, South America, and Europe. It’s been seen at least 1 million times in close to 75 countries, making it one of the most global music sensations ever!
From a one-thousand person flash mob in Jakarta to cover videos from Ai Weiwei and Mitt Romney, hundreds of thousands of parodies have been uploaded to YouTube, some of which have tens of millions of views. In fact, fan tributes to Gangnam Style are now being viewed 20 million times every single day.
PSY's own remix with Hyuna has 200 million views alone.
"Gangnam Style" was YouTube's top rising search of 2012 and on October 6th, we saw more than five million searches for “gangnam style” in a single day. Check out this video demonstrating some of our most popular YouTube searches this year.
For those interested in the business side: a number of assessments and projections have been posted claiming “Gangnam Style” has generated over $8.1 million in advertising deals, hit more than 2.9 million in song downloads since July, and achieved other incredible feats!
Since late last month, people have clicked to buy the track on iTunes over 600,000 times helping make PSY the first Korean artist ever to rank #1 on the U.S. iTunes chart and #1 in over 30 more countries.

Perhaps what’s most impressive about this feat is that it took just over five months to happen. To give this milestone some context, here’s a chart of Gangnam Style’s rise to popularity versus Justin Bieber’s “Baby,” the video that previously held the most-watched video title:

Congratulations to PSY, the flash mobbers, K-Pop fans and people who love fun across the globe. Considering the Gangnam Style dance was the number one dance-related search on YouTube this year, you better make sure you brush up on your moves before New Year's Eve.

The kind of amazing creativity and unique connection between people all over the world that resulted in this one billion views is only possible with an incredible community of people we're so lucky to have on YouTube. And we can't wait to see what you'll come up with next!

YouTube Rewind 2012: Recapping the Year's Top Trends!

2012-12-18T01:00:00.000-05:00

This post originally appeared on The Official YouTube Blog

It’s that time of year again to pause, rewind and remember the videos, the entertainers, and the moments that captivated you in 2012.

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.

2012 has been a big year for YouTube. You’ve been watching over 4 billion hours of video a month. 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.

Check out the YouTube Rewind channel to explore the trending videos of the year in your country. Globally, here’s what we were all talking about in 2012:

Top Trending YouTube Videos:

PSY Passes Bieber; 'Gangnam Style' New Most-Viewed Video of All Time

2012-11-24T11:23:00.002-05:00

Today, global sensation PSY and his wildly popular "Gangnam Style" music video surpassed Justin Bieber's "Baby" as the most viewed music video (and overall video) of all time on YouTube.

As of noon on Saturday, the viewcounts stood at 805 million to 803 million.

Bieber's video picked up the designation in July of 2010, when the then-rising star himself passed Lady Gaga's "Bad Romance". Though it was posted in February of 2010, "Baby" remains popular, continuing to garner between 350k and 500k views per day.

PSY's video first spread from South Korea to the rest of the world in early August. It's been a massive hit at a global level unlike anything we've ever seen before. Each day, "Gangnam Style" is still being watched between 7 and 10 million times.

To give you a sense of how quickly "Gangnam Style" has reached this milestone, here's a chart that shows the viewership path each video took as they each approach 1 billion views. The velocity of popularity for PSY's outlandish video is unprecedented:

"Gangnam Style" and "PSY", respectively, have been the top rising searches on YouTube over the past six months. And these searches are coming from all over the world.

Searches first spiked in South Korea in late July when the video was posted. We began to see search interest rise in the U.S. and other English-speaking nations over the next month until it began to peak in September in North America and Brazil. "Gangnam Style" searches and viewing began to spike more broadly and in places like Europe and India in October.

PSY's official channel now has over 1 billion views, a considerable number. Views on Bieber's VEVO channel alone, however, still total over 3 billion.

Click here to see the charts for the most-viewed YouTube videos of all time

'Sandy' Videos Spur Major Interest

2012-11-01T14:43:00.001-04:00

The superstorm Sandy inflicted serious damage to the east coast of the United States this week, drawing attention and interest from all over. In the United States, "Hurricane Sandy" was YouTube's top rising search of the past seven days as residents in affected areas as well as those beyond, sought out information as well as bystander footage of the disaster.

Over 30,000 videos mentioning "Sandy" were uploaded Monday alone and these and other videos from this week have been viewed tens of millions of times.

With over 5 million views in just 2 days, the most-watched video from the storm is the footage of the power plant explosion in lower Manhattan that left much of the city in the dark.

The Weather Channel livestreamed their forecasts of the storm on YouTube as it battered the East coast, reaching 13 million livestream views over the course of their coverage.

Other popular videos include footage of flooding in New York and the rescue of passengers from the HMS Bounty.

More footage at CitizenTube

Interest in "Hurricane" searches Monday were at their highest since 2008 (as far as our records go back). The most recent search interest spike prior to this was last summer, when Hurricane Irene threatened the east coast as indicated in the chart below:

Gangnam Style vs Call Me Maybe: A Popularity Comparison

2012-09-12T19:48:00.000-04:00

Gangnam Style or Call Me Maybe? PSY or Carly Rae Jepsen? This summer, the two songs/music videos have been nearly inescapable on the web and have sparked unpredictably enormous levels of interest and reaction.

Comparing the popularity of two video phenomena can be tricky. There are a multitude of factors you could take into account. For example, if you look at how many views the two official videos has accrued, Carly Rae Jepsen's single has 250 million since it was posted March 1, while PSY has drawn 150 million since July 15.

Plotted out on a chart:

As you can see, "Call Me Maybe" has been insanely popular over the past six and a half months. But what you don't see is the velocity with which "Gangnam Style" has exploded. To examine that, we've charted the daily viewership for these videos and mapped out the days since they were first posted:

As you can see here, within just 2 months, Korean pop anthem "Gangnam Style" has increased to an average of over 6 million views per day. But you can also see that "Call Me Maybe" has had unusually strong staying power, averaging over 1.5 million views each day throughout the entire summer. That kind of sustained audience is uncommon and it still remains unclear just how long "Gangnam Style" will be around.

NOTE: Not factored in here is another, star-studded "unofficial" video which helped kick off the "Call Me Maybe" craze back in February and March.

There are also other considerations, too:

"Call Me Maybe" has been a somewhat American phenomena, while the "Gangnam Style" craze has been a bit more global.
Much of the attention on "Gangnam Style" has focused on its outrageous music video, while the attention "Call Me Maybe" has gotten has been more about the song's pop culture spread.
On the fan reaction front, PSY fan videos are just starting to appear, but videos mentioning "Call Me Maybe" have been seen nearly a billion times.

Where we go from here no one knows. "Gangnam Style" is still taking off -- PSY teaching the dance to Ellen and Britney Spears has been seen 5 million times in two days this week -- and "Call Me Maybe" all these months later is still this week just behind it at #2 on the YouTube Music Chart.

Videos Mentioning Obama or Romney Top 2 Billion Views

2012-08-27T09:44:00.002-04:00

The U.S. election is heating up, and we’re not just talking about the humidity in Tampa. Since April 2011, when Romney officially entered the race, close to 600,000 videos mentioning Obama or Romney have been uploaded to YouTube, and these videos account for close to 2 billion views.

Topping the list of these videos is baracksdubs’ “Barack Obama Singing Call Me Maybe,” which has racked up over 24 million views in just a few months.

Political pop song parodies are on the rise in general. In the past month, this Gotye parody titled, “Obama That I Used to Know” and a more humorous One Direction parody about Romney have both crossed the million view mark and hit the YouTube Trending Videos list.

It’s not just light-hearted fare that have people tuning in. Since the primaries began, there have been more than 100 million views of official presidential candidate videos on YouTube.

In fact, in just the last 30 days, people have spent more than 20 cumulative years watching official videos of Obama and Romney (that’s two years longer than Justin Bieber has been alive).

And new uploads from Obama and Romney’s official YouTube channels are gaining traction quickly, with videos receiving hundreds of thousands of views within a few days of upload. The latest video on Obama for America’s YouTube channel has received over 217,000 views in just 24 hours. And since Mitt Romney announced Paul Ryan as his running mate, he has seen a surge in both channel subscribers (a 300% increase since the Ryan announcement) and views. Their first video together, “America’s Comeback Team” has racked up over 1.1 million views in two weeks and is the second most-viewed video on the Romney channel:

We’ll be tracking the political trends on YouTube until Election Day. To keep your finger on the pulse of political video, and to watch up-to-the-minute live and on-demand coverage from the campaign trail, visit the YouTube Elections Hub at www.youtube.com/politics or follow YouTube Politics here.

Blockbuster Battle: Spider-Man vs. Batman

2012-08-10T16:40:00.000-04:00

In anticipation of this summer’s biggest blockbuster films, the world watched trailers for The Amazing Spider-Man and The Dark Knight Rises over 100 million times. With all of the fanfare surrounding these superheros, we wondered who would win if they squared off against each other in a good old fashioned popularity contest. Would Gotham’s hero rise against the amazing webslinger? Would Peter Parker get the best of Bruce Wayne?

We found some really interesting data when we looked at global searches for “Spiderman” and “Batman” videos in the weeks leading up to each film’s box office debut. See the graphs below to discover which superhero was the most popular among fans.

Global searches for “Spiderman” (red) snuck ahead of “Batman” (blue) by just a bit when The Amazing Spider-Man hit theaters on July 3. But search interest in the caped crusader significantly overtook Spidey after The Dark Knight Rises premiered on the July 20.

India is the only country where "Spiderman" drew more search interest than "Batman" -- and that’s likely due to Bollywood star Irrfan Khan’s role as Dr. Ratha.

So there it is - Batman wins over Spider-Man. But if the data doesn't do it for you, here's extremely rare footage of the two superheroes duking it out for all to see.

'Gangnam Style' is Your International Hit of the Month

2012-08-07T15:16:00.000-04:00

Only in 2012 can an off-the-wall music video from South Korea become a hit in the U.S. in a matter of just a few days. This month, Korean pop singer PSY's "Gangnam Style" surprised many by quickly climbing to the #3 spot on YouTube's music video charts.

Below you can track the number of views per day this video has registered around the world since it was posted:

North American interest in Korean pop music has been on the rise for some time now and it's not entirely uncommon to see a popular music video spread across the Pacific.

YouTube searches for PST's single hit their first peak in Korea on July 26, but searching in the U.S. and Canada for "gangnam" really started to spike a week later. Globally, the video began drawing the most attention this past weekend, and "gangnam style" is one of YouTube's top rising searches of August.

The video, which blends Korean and English, has been drawing over one million views per day, and is currently one of our most shared videos in South Korea as well as the U.S., UK, Canada, Australia, Singapore, Taiwan, Belgium and Sweden.

Naturally, we've already started to see lots of parodies/homages as well. In the past two weeks, nearly 1,000 videos have been posted with "gangnam" (in English) in the title. And we can only hope they all feature the same dance...

Early Trends for the London Games

2012-08-01T18:51:00.000-04:00

Great ads, amusing parodies, and dry wit; the 30th olympiad has already brought us a microcosm of YouTubeness. "Olympics 2012" is a top rising search in the U.S. from the past 30 days and sports fever has spread across diverse genres.

We're only a few days in, but those first few days and last week's build up have delivered plenty of trending videos all over the YouTube map. First, and not surprisingly, many top brands have produced special ads for the games, some of which have been frequently shared and embedded.

The spots in the playlist below, which includes ads from Nike, P&G, Adidas, and more, have been seen over 15 million times total.

One of the most popular single videos to come from London this week was filmed not inside the games themselves, but from outside, where a dry and very funny Olympic worker expresses her enthusiasm about the start of competition. The clip already has 1.2 million views to date.

In the music genre, some of Team USA's top athletes created home-made lip-sync videos that spread quickly as the games kicked off. Below Women's Soccer "sings" some Miley Cyrus while U.S. swimmers take on Carly Rae Jepsen. Together, these videos have over 4 million combined views.

We'll be tracking all the trends coming out London over the next two weeks. Stay tuned!

'Fireworks' Searches See Largest Spike Ever

2012-07-09T12:37:00.000-04:00

YouTube searches for "fireworks" videos typically see a big spike each 4th of July in the United States (and a smaller one over New Years), but last week saw the biggest we've ever seen.

The culprit? A fireworks display "gone wrong" in San Diego, California, where the cities annual display -- meant to last close to 20 minutes -- was ignited and exploded all at once. Two of this past week's most-viewed videos globally are bystander videos of the beautiful accident. Over 30,000 fireworks-related videos were posted in the past week and the most popular footage was from the San Diego display, which so far been seen over 5 million times combined.

Below you can see a graph charting weekly U.S. search interest for the term "fireworks" that puts this year's spike in direct comparison with previous years'. (You'll notice an unexplained rise in searches in late 2010, for which Katy Perry is the likely culprit.)

San Diego's "Big Bay Boom 'Bust'", as it's being called, is now currently one of the most-viewed fireworks displays ever on YouTube. (The #1 fireworks video is from London's 2011 New Year's Eve celebration.)

You can see a collection of the videos from the San Diego display in the playlist below.

What's Hot in Ghana, Malaysia, Peru and More

2012-06-27T14:59:00.000-04:00

Over the past few months, YouTube has launched localized versions of the site in a handful of new countries, which is great news for trends-seekers as we've also added these countries to our Trends Dashboard. This means you can stay on top of the most-viewed and most-shared videos in Chile, Ghana, Hungary, Malaysia, Indonesia, and Peru.

Below, we've highlighted a few popular music videos and trending clips from these locales and you can see more via our YouTube Trends Dashboard.

GHANA	MALAYSIA

HUNGARY	CHILE

'Call Me Maybe' Still on the Rise

2012-06-20T17:55:00.000-04:00

Whether you've just heard it or you've been hearing it for months, Carly Rae Jepsen's hit single seems here to stay. The video for "Call Me Maybe" is currently #1 on YouTube's music chart and has picked up over 100 million views. The online spread of the song has helped it become one of YouTube's top rising searches this year.

Below you can view the weekly search interest in "Call Me Maybe," which has continued to rise since February and is still growing.

The song -- which many people were first exposed to via a lip-sync fan video featuring Justin Bieber, Selena Gomez, Ashley Tishdale, and others -- has inspired all sorts of creativity and reaction that have served only to broaden its spread.

For more see: 'Call Me Maybe' is Your College Roadtrip Theme Song

Moog: Another Crop of Musical Doodle Videos

2012-05-23T19:08:00.000-04:00

Today, Google shared a tribute to Robert "Bob" Moog, inventor of the synthesizer, with a playable, interactive homepage doodle that actually allowed you to create and record tunes.

Much like Les Paul's birthday doodle, music fans globally have begun editing and posting video versions of their creations. Nearly 1,000 "Moog" videos were posted to YouTube by early Wednesday evening.

Perhaps the most elaborate comes from musician Brett Domino who took on Daft Punk's "Aerodynamic"

A Japanese musician took on the overture from "Dragon Quest" in this video that's been very popular on Twitter:

Some took it slow and soulful:

While others have gone for pure speed:

(A group pals from Italy even took on Van Halen's "Jump.")

And it wouldn't be a musical trend on YouTube at this point if SOMEONE didn't make this cover:

Moog's chief engineer created a clip discussing the doodle, which you can check out here.

How Many 'Happy Birthday' Videos Are Posted Each Day?

2012-05-21T14:23:00.000-04:00

Today we celebrate YouTube's 7th Birthday, and in honor of this occasion, we dug into the data to see what we could find about how people celebrate birthdays via web video.

In the average week, nearly 10,000 "happy birthday" (English) videos are posted to YouTube.When you include the terms for "happy birthday" in Spanish, Italian, Russian, Portuguese, French, and a few other languages, that number jumps to just over 15,000, meaning that there are over 2,000 posted each day.

Many these videos have been seen over 100,000 times. Here's just one of them:

Birthday searches are consistent throughout the year, with "wishes," "song," and "quote" being popular related terms. People & Blogs is the most-common category for "happy birthday" videos followed by Entertainment and then Music.

'Call Me Maybe' is Your College Roadtrip Theme Song

2012-05-17T13:46:00.000-04:00

Carly Rae Jepsen's "Call Me Maybe" might be the inescapable song of the summer. The official video has over 68 million views in the past two months or so and, both globally and in the United States, the song has become one of YouTube's top rising searches of 2012 thus far.

But it's the thousands of covers and fan videos that have perhaps been most notable about this hit. On February 28th, just before the official video was released, a silly, home-made, lip-sync video was posted by Carlos PenaCarlos Pena, Jr. from the Nickelodeon series "Big Time Rush." The clip featured Ashley Tisdale, Justin Bieber, and Selena Gomez and itself has nearly 40 million views and went on to inspire hundreds of similar videos by random fans and even some celebrities.

But now a new trend has sprouted up thanks to some Ivy League ball players.

Last week, some members of the Harvard baseball team posted this video, which was heavily shared and picked up over 7 million views.

The video has inspired a crop of new videos by athletes from all over the country, looking to kill some time time traveling on the road. They playlist below contains videos by teams ranging from baseball to softball to... women's rowing.

(Use the arrows to navigate between videos or watch them all here.)

Political Videos of the Week: Gingrich Out and More

2012-05-01T12:36:00.001-04:00

A number of U.S. political videos are spreading quickly this week.

Today, candidate Newt Gingrich gave advance notice to his supporters via a YouTube video that he will be dropping out of the presidential race this week. It's quickly seeing pick up on political blogs and news sites:

Meanwhile, President Obama revealed his campaign slogan for the 2012 election in this top trending video and 7-minute documentary.

The President also has had two other very popular videos/appearances hit our trending feeds this week: his "duet" with Jimmy Fallon "Slow Jamming the News" and his remarks at this past weekend's White House Correspondent's Dinner.

For his part, GOP candidate Mitt Romney also has a video on our most-shared list right now: a critical spot called "Broken Promises."

Gotye's Growing Popularity in 2012

2012-04-23T14:21:00.001-04:00

This time last year, you may not have heard about Belgian-Australian singer-songwriter Gotye, but now his work seems inescapable for many. In particular the song, "Somebody That I Used to Know" has become a global hit, the official video has over 175 million views and currently sits at the #1 spot on YouTube's music chart.

That original video first hit the web in July of 2011, but the clip drew an impressive, though relatively modest 30 million views (nearly half in December) with many of the interest coming from Germany, Australia, and the Netherlands.

In 2012, the video has averaged over 35 million views per month and has become incredibly popular in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Poland. In addition to obvious increases in radio airplay, part of the YouTube popularity stems from a very viral cover from January by the band "Walk Off the Earth" that features five performers using one guitar; it's been seen 94 million times. This month, a cover on Glee and The Voice have also stirred up new buzz.

"Gotye" is one of 2012's top rising searches, and so for a better picture of how popularity has changed over time, below you can see the relative weekly search interest for "Gotye."