2016 has come and gone, and now we’re left to reflect.
While IRL, the year wasn’t necessarily the best we’ve ever experienced, we wouldn’t say it was a terrible one overall. Just one look on YouTube will convince you of the opposite. This past year was FILLED with loads of great content, from music videos to comedy sketches, spoken words to some good old fashioned chatty vlogs.
In fact, it was such a good year that we simply had to make a list of the five best videos of 2016. It was hard and we spent many sleepless nights arguing with each other about who should make the cut, but we were finally able to pick our favourites.
So we present to you, in all its glory, the 2016 Yearly Round-Up.
Sick of Losing Soulmates – dodie
Here at TenEighty, we thought we’d had the Dodie Clark formula all figured out: Dodie releases a beautiful song, we cry, repeat. It was all so simple. But, lo and behold, she pulled a fast one on us with this stunning new music video (on a sparkly new VEVO channel to boot!). We’d be mad if the video weren’t so darn perfect.
The delicate simplicity of Dodie’s original style is supplemented this time around with cymbal crescendos, a building percussion section, and a choir of angelic backing vocals to rival your favourite holiday tunes, while Dottie James and Cambria Bailey-Jones navigate all the twists and turns of a relationship under pressure, captured by director (and TenEighty favourite) Sammy Paul.
We can’t wait for the next beautiful depiction of Dodie’s music to break online!
Truth or Drink with My Ex! – Hannah Witton
We couldn’t let this year go past without giving (another) shoutout to this video from Hannah Witton. It’s seriously too good a video to not feature!
This video pretty much does what it says on the tin: it’s an honest (and, at times, hilarious) discussion about Hannah and Tim Hautekiet‘s relationship (with an extra little bit of narration from Dodie). We love Hannah and Tim’s openness in this, even if we do feel like we’d react exactly like Dodie if we were listening in on this conversation IRL…
Vlune 25 – THE END – Adrian Bliss
Nope. No. NO. We STILL refuse to believe Vlune‘s over… Back in June, we eagerly followed Adrian Bliss‘s adventures across the US as he made his way to VidCon Disneyland, and the finale was just as emotional and brilliant as we’d hoped it would be.
We were treated to a month of brand deals, journalists, Beth, Vegas, and just about everything else you can possibly imagine, along with a good dose of satire and poignancy. And no, we’re still not crying over it… You’re imagining things.
Bump to Buddy – Tom Fletcher
How could we possibly put together a Yearly Round-Up without mentioning this lovely bit of cuteness from Tom Fletcher? Being the guy he is, Tom wasn’t satisfied with providing us with just one viral video this year – he had to give us this extra slice of baby-related goodness!
It’s super adorable, with a song to boot (not that we’d expect anything less from a Fletcher), and if you haven’t seen it yet – which we find highly unlikely – now’s your chance! Oh, and we’re totally not crying, we just have leaky eyes. Maybe we should see the doctor about that…
Anxiety, yo. – Jon Aitken
Oh, this boy. Where do we even start? Jon Aitken made his triumphant return to the Round-Up this past year, and this video by far was our favourite. Being the super honest guy we know and love, Jon opens up about anxiety, depression, and whether he listens to too much Lana Del Rey (which, by the way, is not physically possible – we’ve checked).
Watching Jon talk about his mental health so openly and discuss how he’s learned to empower himself is honestly inspiring. It’s clear that since his time writing for TenEighty (we still miss him terribly – he hasn’t even written us a postcard), Jon has made numerous positive changes in his life and is now in a better place because of it. He also now does yoga. Slay.
Didn’t we tell you 2016 was a good year for YouTube?
As we mentioned before, it was mighty difficult narrowing down our list to just five videos. Honestly, some of us were considering making the list longer, but we were sadly outvoted. Do you agree with our picks, or do you think other videos should have been featured? Well, we’ve also been showcasing our favourite videos every seven days in our Weekly Round-Up column for nearly three years now – check it out!
While you’re here, you might as well check out our other send-offs to 2016:
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