Inside YouTube’s 2025 Culture and Trends Data With Maddie Buxton

As 2025 winds down, streaming and podcast platforms roll out their annual recaps, highlighting the most-played songs, top podcasts, breakout creators, and cultural moments that defined the year.

Spotify Wrapped and Apple Music Replay return at the end of the year with personalized breakdowns of listeners’ most-streamed artists, top songs, and favorite genres. On the podcast side, the two also publish year-end rankings that reveal the most popular shows and episodes, spotlighting everything from breakout interview series to true crime favorites. Together, these recaps double as cultural temperature checks, showing not just what people listened to, but what captured attention all year long.

YouTube is wrapping up its 20th anniversary celebration by unveiling its annual End of Year Trending Lists, which highlight the creators, songs, podcasts, and cultural moments of 2025. For the first time, YouTube has launched YouTube Recap, a personalized and shareable highlight reel of a user’s watch history that showcases their top channels, interests, personality type, and more.

The YouTube Culture and Trends team analyzed data from the past year and found that users are increasingly turning to YouTube for high-energy girl groups like KATSEYE and KPop Demon Hunters. Popular content also includes the unique worlds of Roblox, IShowSpeed’s lively livestreams, in-depth discussions on The Joe Rogan Experience, Kendrick Lamar’s “Luther,” and Black Eyed Peas’ 2007 hit, “Rock That Body.”

Maddie Buxton, Culture and Trends Manager at YouTube, explained that the platform’s year-end lists are rooted primarily in YouTube data, using metrics like reach, views, and engagement to reflect what audiences actually watched and shared. She noted that the same data-driven approach applies when identifying creators, brands, and cultural moments that resonated most throughout the year.

Beyond the lists, YouTube also publishes a broader Trends Report that incorporates additional research to unpack larger creator and cultural shifts, offering deeper insight into how audiences engage with content. AdBuzzDaily spoke with Buxton to break everything down.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Can you walk us through the decision-making process behind how each person or brand was chosen, and what criteria matter most when narrowing down the final selections? 

For Top Creators, we look at in-country subscribers gained in 2025. For the Trending Topics List we look at a variety of signals, including views, uploads, and creator activity around these topics. Only topics determined to have conspicuous popularity this year, either because they were new to 2025 or because they experienced significant increases in user interest metrics, were eligible.

As you look ahead to 2026, what emerging trends or behaviors from Gen Z are you most excited to spotlight, and how do you expect them to impact next year’s list? 

So many things! First, gaming, especially open world gaming, is having an increasingly large impact on pop culture. With a game like Roblox, where creators themselves are building the experiences that break through, there is more opportunity for individual users to define the zeitgeist. These creators use the game like a creative studio, producing videos that live on YouTube and take storytelling in new directions. 

The appearance of topics such as anime (Blue Lock), Labubu, and KPop also reinforces that online culture is more global than ever before and audiences in the US are actively seeking out these international influences. We’ve previously seen this globalization on the Top Songs list, but its dominance on the Trending Topics list is more novel and something I expect to see continuing into 2026. 

How have video podcasts changed broadcast TV’s role as the go-to place for breaking news, and what does that shift mean for creators and journalism?

This is also the first year we’ve put out a Top Podcasts list. Video podcasts have existed on YouTube for a long time, but in the past couple of years in particular we’ve seen that they have become the place for public figures to make and break news. They are now the go-to interview hub, a position previously occupied by broadcast TV. I think that we’ll see more creators starting their own podcasts and more major news being broken on them. 

What do you hope this year’s list communicates to audiences about where Gen Z influence is headed, and how do you anticipate that story evolving in the coming year? 

Younger generations are reshaping culture, changing what they watch and even shifting their fundamental ideas about entertainment. This influence will continue to show up through increasing globalization of trends, breakthrough creator-led moments in gaming, and a “must watch” factor for podcasts.