YouTube is Saying Goodbye to Its Trending Page After 10 Years

YouTube’s Trending section is where you’d typically go to discover what’s trending on the platform. But after a 10-year run, the platform is finally saying goodbye to the Trending page and the Trending Now list, in favor of popular videos for separate categories.

Launched back in 2015, the Trending page showed a single list of the most viewed or viral content. But according to the announcement post shared on YouTube’s Help page, trends today are far more diverse than what they used to be. This is why YouTube is replacing the Trending page with category-specific charts.

Moving forward, users can explore category-specific content on YouTube Charts. It already has sections for Trending Music Videos, Weekly Top Podcasts, and Trending Movie Trailers, and YouTube plans to add more in the future. For other types of content, users can find personalized suggestions on the Home page of the app.

Meaghan, a Team YouTube spokesperson, discussed the reason YouTube is getting rid of the Trending section in the post, “Viewers increasingly learn about trends in different places across YouTube – from recommendations and search suggestions to Shorts, comments, and Communities. With these shifts, we’ve seen visits to the Trending page decrease significantly, especially over the last five years.”

The End of an Era of Trending Hits

I was there when YouTube’s Trending section launched alongside the 2015 Rewind. It became the epicentre of the post-2010 cultural boom and, to some extent, defined the pop culture of the decade’s latter half. You would jump onto the Trending page to find random videos raking millions of views.

Whether it was a hit music video, a trailer of a Marvel movie, a stand-up comedy clip, or just two guys in a jungle building a pool out of mud. There was no telling what you would find there. Some of the viral songs from that time owed their success to the Trending page, like Despacito by Luis Fonsi or See You Again by Charlie Puth.

Many popular YouTube success stories got their first spotlight at the top of the Trending List. And of course, it was fodder for commentary creators to find new content to roast. But over the years, YouTube slowly pushed it into obscurity, replacing it with the Shorts page.

I feel a bit sappy writing this story as someone who owes much of their teenage years to YouTube, where I found many of my favorite channels through that all-encompassing trending list. But the day had to come sooner or later, and with this move, we bid farewell to yet another good feature.