00:00You know, if I controlled Rewind, I would want Fortnite and Marquez Brownlee.
00:06Welcome to WatchMojo, and today we're counting down our picks for the most excruciatingly awkward YouTube moments.
00:12Everyone else has gotten to speak for me, and I've yet to be able to tell this story from start
00:17to finish.
00:18Number 10, Call of Duty Infinite Warfare Trailer.
00:21The Call of Duty games franchise has existed since 2003.
00:24Since then, it's had its fair share of controversies, one of the most famous being their Infinite Warfare reveal trailer.
00:34It was the 13th game in the series, and they doubled down on making the combat more futuristic.
00:40Unfortunately, the fans hated this decision, instead wanting the series to return to its roots.
00:49It quickly became one of the most disliked videos in history.
00:52The developers decided to actually listen to their fans after this, with the following release being set during World War
00:57II.
01:02Number 9, Numerous YouTubers, Cinnamon Challenge Fails.
01:06Cinnamon is one of the most delicious spices, being a staple of countless recipes.
01:11As yummy as it is, eating raw powdered cinnamon is a horrible idea.
01:15What's so challenging about cinnamon? Really?
01:17It's extremely dry, which can irritate your throat, and lead to potentially fatal health issues.
01:22Despite this, people have made a challenge out of eating spoonfuls of raw cinnamon.
01:26It began in 2001, but peaked on YouTube in the 2010s.
01:30I'm using a regulation tablespoon of cinnamon, and I've got my emergency throat evacuator of water here.
01:36It got so out of hand, that at one point, it caused hundreds of daily phone calls to poison control.
01:41People were hospitalized, and it was all for the sake of following online trends.
01:45The moral of the story is, if you want your cinnamon fix, just have a cinnamon roll.
01:49The chemical in the cinnamon, while it may be good on the top of a cookie mixed with some sugar,
01:54it can be very, very damaging, not only to the swallowing tube, to the nasal passages,
01:59they're seeing nosebleeds, but also to the breathing tubes.
02:02Number 8, Rebecca Black's Saturday follow-up fail.
02:05If you were on YouTube in 2011, there's a close to zero chance you missed Friday by Rebecca Black.
02:10It's Friday, Friday, gotta get down on Friday, everybody's looking forward to the weekend, weekend.
02:20The comically poor quality track made her infamous, and quickly became one of the site's most disliked uploads.
02:25After four follow-up singles that gained little momentum, she dropped Saturday in 2013, featuring YouTuber Dave Days.
02:39Somehow, it ended up being more embarrassing than her debut single.
02:43It failed to make a splash, feeling like a lazy attempt to recreate her previous viral success.
02:48It's doubtful that Black cares anymore, though.
02:50As an adult, she started releasing music that's genuinely celebrated.
02:54This includes a hyper-pop remix of Friday, featuring some of the scene's biggest names.
03:03Number 7, Sadak 2 Trailer.
03:05If you're out of the loop with Bollywood lore, this scandal probably flew completely under your radar.
03:10In 2020, the trailer for the sequel to the 1991 movie Sadak dropped.
03:14While the film received little praise, it was mainly controversial for the director's alleged nepotism.
03:19The trailer came shortly after actor, Sushant Singh Dronjput, took his own life.
03:24People believed one reason he did this was that Bollywood was biased against him, since he wasn't related to already
03:30celebrated figures.
03:31This meant he's always had an immensely tough time landing roles.
03:35Fans called for a boycott.
03:36Plus, within 24 hours of its release, it became the website's most disliked video.
03:41Number 6, Gamer Girl Belle Delphine Bathwater Sale.
03:45In 2019, 19-year-old Belle Delphine became known globally for selling her own bathwater, marketed as Gamer Girl Bathwater.
04:00It was sold for $30 a jar, which sounded like a pretty overt scam, but it worked, and sold out
04:06in only three days at first.
04:07It felt like a desperate attempt for attention, but that's exactly what she got.
04:11I just kind of did it because I could, and I kind of wanted to see if I could.
04:16While there was major backlash to the stunt, it definitely worked, with the whole internet talking about her for a
04:21brief period.
04:22Really? The people who actually bought the product should be more embarrassed than Delphine herself.
04:26Well, I kind of like indulging in the insanity of what I'm doing.
04:31Number 5, Jake Paul, It's Everyday Bro Music Video.
04:34When you think of the worst rap songs written by a YouTuber, there's a strong chance It's Everyday Bro is
04:40the first you think of.
04:41This is Team 10, who the hell loves sipping you? And you know I kick them out if they ain't
04:46with the crew?
04:47Jake Paul and his content crew, Team 10, dropped it in 2017, and it was quickly met with overwhelming negativity.
04:54It's full of lyrics that are so awful, they're hilarious, making the track highly quotable.
04:59It's Everyday Bro, It's Everyday Bro, I said it's Everyday Bro!
05:04It's easy to miss the fact that it's a diss track which was aimed at Paul's ex-girlfriend.
05:08It was so prominent that it spawned a trend of YouTube drama being solved entirely with diss tracks, which has
05:14thankfully died down since.
05:15And I will see you tomorrow cause it's Everyday Bro! Peace!
05:20Number 4, James Somerton.
05:22Few internet figures have been criticized for plagiarism to the same extent as James Somerton.
05:27I feel like I have a pretty good view of the film industry from, you know, from a distance. A
05:34very far distance.
05:35He joined YouTube in 2011, then worked hard at becoming a popular video essayist.
05:40Turns out, most of this hard work was being done by other people.
05:43In 2023, he was accused of plagiarism and became a focus of HBomberguy's 4-hour video essay on the topic.
05:50And it quickly became clear he did do it. He's a massive plagiarist. In fact, there's a bunch of stuff
05:55no one else has found yet.
05:57He's just convinced his audience to attack people when they notice.
06:00Somerton released an apology, but he didn't accept full responsibility. Instead, he blamed someone else.
06:05He then mostly vanished until returning in 2025, but quickly repeated his mistakes and got himself chased off the platform
06:11once again.
06:12I also want to apologize to my audience, though. You trusted me to be a good representative of the queer
06:18community, and I was not that.
06:21Number three, React World. Reaction videos are a pretty simple format that everyone with a camera can do.
06:26Today, you are reacting to this.
06:29What is this?
06:30What is that?
06:32Uh, a computer?
06:33YouTube duo Benny and Rafi Fine created the lighthearted series Kids React in 2010, which snowballed into them creating tons
06:41of reaction videos.
06:42The brothers' success went straight to their heads, leading them to try to trademark reaction videos in 2016.
06:47We are excited to announce React World, which is a first-of-his-kind program that allows people and companies
06:52to license all our popular shows online
06:54so that anyone, even you watching right now, can create your own versions in a fully legal way and be
06:59part of a new and exciting global community.
07:01Responses were nothing but negative, and their reputations were decimated.
07:05The pair released an apology video soon after, but this damaged control was too little, too late.
07:10Their channels began losing subscribers, and then in 2020, their company was accused of maintaining a toxic workplace.
07:16We're sorry for confusing people by using terminology like our React format.
07:20We were never trying to say that every video or someone reacts to something else is something we would try
07:25to control.
07:26So, in 2021, they sold their content company and left YouTube entirely.
07:30Number 2. TanaCon Apology
07:33Tana Mongeau joined YouTube in 2015, then became so popular that in 2018, she had the brilliant idea of hosting
07:39her own convention.
07:40TanaCon was something I was excited about. It was a dream of mine that was finally coming true.
07:47This was because she was upset at VidCon not making her a featured creator.
07:51It ended up being a train wreck of a convention.
07:53Approximately 5,000 people came, then spent most of the events standing in queues beneath the harsh Californian sun.
07:59You don't plan a convention in two months.
08:02You don't put that many people's lives at risk.
08:07Little food or drink was provided, causing quite a few individuals to pass out.
08:11All these issues combined meant they canceled it on the first day before it properly began.
08:15She then released an apology that many found insincere,
08:18as she didn't take full responsibility and blamed other people for the disaster.
08:22I'm sorry if you came to TanaCon.
08:25I'm sorry if you had a sunburn.
08:26I'm sorry if you waited in line.
08:28I'm sorry you didn't get to meet your favorite creators.
08:31Before we continue, be sure to subscribe to our channel and ring the bell to get notified about our latest
08:36videos.
08:37You have the option to be notified for occasional videos or all of them.
08:41If you're on your phone, make sure you go into your settings and switch on notifications.
08:47Number 1. YouTube Rewind 2018
08:50When we think about the company YouTube's biggest blunders,
08:53few can top their disastrous 2018 Rewind.
08:56Yeah! It's Rewind time!
08:59Every year since 2010, they've been releasing annual recaps featuring all the website's hottest trends and memes.
09:05A lot of the early ones were a blast, with the 2012 one even featuring Psy.
09:09Over time, their quality declined significantly, and their 2018 release was appalling.
09:14Apparently, we control Rewind this year.
09:18Y'all, we can do whatever we want.
09:21Almost everyone hated it.
09:23Even YouTube's CEO said her children called it cringey.
09:26Many of the website's most popular stars were excluded,
09:29but instead, people like Will Smith and Trevor Noah were invited.
09:32They released one more in 2019, which was also disliked,
09:36so they cancelled Rewinds completely.
09:43Were there any other especially cringeworthy fails we didn't mention?
09:46Let us know in the comments below.
