Floods, Wardrobe Essentials and Investing: YouTube February 2022 Trends

While February was a short month, a lot happened. And these are just some of the videos that caught my eye:

• Amelia Dimoldenberg’s unstoppable awkwardness met Louis Theroux’s immovable humanity in an instant classic Chicken Shop Date.
• 3Blue1Brown used information theory to determine the best starting word for Wordle.
• The ABC wondered how and when the pandemic will end.
• Dave Grohl ate some hot wings.
• Jennie from BLACKPINK dropped an LA vlog where the most jarring thing imaginable is watching her do normal person things.
• The hip hop Avengers aka Dr. Dre, Snoop Dogg, Eminem, Mary J. Blige, Kendrick Lamar & 50 Cent came together to deliver one of the most hype halftime shows ever.
• And Beijing 2022 is over but Vox’s winter sports explainers are still worth a watch, especially this video on chaos on ice short track speed skating that references Aussie icon Stephen Bradbury.

Recently Trending Videos

Beau Miles is an intrepid Aussie maker and doer who makes and does some pretty weird things and his latest video is no different.

The video description sums it up best: "My mate Pete rolled his ankle badly when we were running one morning. He limped back to the carpark and I kept going. As I continued to run I thought, ‘I’m gonna get my crowbar and wheelbarrow, dig that big-arse rock out of the trail and run it to Pete’s house’. So that’s what I did."

Tiny boat. Big blue. Big buy a drone and quit your job energy. Another visual delight (did you know a disproportionate amount of people watch this content on TV screens?) from Aussie creator YBS Youngbloods.

Your boy's back. Sydney Ableton wizard Flume has released a psychedelic film clip for his new single "Say Nothing" featuring Aussie singer MAY-A. The music video finds the Aussie producer cosplaying as The Place Beyond The Pines era Ryan Gosling amidst futuristic CGI visuals. His new album Palaces features guest spots from Caroline Polachek and Damon Albarn and is slated for release in May.

Recently Trending Shorts

In February, we saw people celebrate Lunar New Year at street parades, with fireworks and lion dancing, and of course, food and family. For good fortune, families will gather together to share food and take part in Yee Sang (Yusheng) or Lo Hei (also known as the Prosperity Toss). For Valentine’s Day, creators expressed how they feel about their significant others, made delicious food to share and created art with their heartthrobs in mind - and even the sky got involved by showcasing its pinkest hues at sunset. How romantic!

1. Battery plug.. No cap - 9.8M views, channel: Jamie's Garage
2. When you finally date a non toxic guy - 7.5M views, channel: Andrea Subotic
3. Homage to that IG Thing #shorts - 6.1M views, channel: AwesomeFramers
4. Retrieving stolen goods speedrun (11.31 seconds) - 4.3M views, channel: I am MoBo
5. Ludwig can’t keep getting away with it - 4M views, channel: The Yard Clips

Creators on the Rise

Aussie charcoal artist Carly Renèe creates moody photorealistic portraits and you can too! Carly's channel features vlogs, shorts, time-lapses of her work and tutorials on the techniques and tools you need to turn out your own masterpieces.

Two Broke Chicks, Sally and Alex, are best friends and journalists who love to help girls navigate life. The two share lots of fashion tips and beauty secrets, like discussing secondhand wardrobe essentials, rating viral beauty products and going over 2022 shoe basics. Sally and Alex have also gone on to start their own podcast.

Spotlight

YouTube is a place of learning and how to, and in this life school one of the more recent subjects to take-off with Gen Z and Millennials is investing and money management. There are some recognisable and new faces in this space.

• Invest With Queenie invites us along on her journey to reach financial freedom. Her channel concentrates on building wealth, investing and saving hacks and communicates the fundamentals of investing in an engaging and accessible way.
• No job title elicits eyerolls quite like entrepreneur but David Fogarty is the real deal. The entrepreneur and branding expert is the CEO and founder of The Oodie, the notoriously ‘grammable and hyper cozy wearable blanket that you may have considered purchasing during your devolution into a sea slug these past two years. Fogarty’s channel focuses on marketing, branding, online retail and passive income from the point of view of someone who’s made some mistakes but learned from them to be enormously successful. Time to turn that side hustle into a $ide hustle.
• Economics Explained covers macroeconomic forces such as interest rates, inflation and the housing market. With provocative explainers on why working harder is making us poorer and whether we actually want affordable housing, it's not hard to see why this Aussie creator has accumulated over 1.5m subscribers.
• Brandon van der Kolk aka New Money makes even-keeled, well researched and accessible explainers about investing, personal finance and building wealth. Great for anyone looking to understand finance fundamentals like how to purchase stocks or how to set up passive income streams. His subscriber count rose sharply during the pandemic and is now at almost 500k.

My Pick of the Month

Gardeners usually pray for rain. But not like this. Aussie sustainability creator Self Sufficient Me gives us all an update on the flooding happening in and around his property in South East Queensland - something we haven’t been able to take our eyes off.
Self Sufficient Me is one of the most globally popular Australian sustainability channels with over 1.5m subscribers. The channel really kicked off during the first wave of the pandemic as people looked to become more self-sufficient. Head to his channel to learn more about how to grow and harvest your own produce.

*Each month I spill a little digital ink on what's going on in this little corner of the internet. Pop by each month to read more about what’s happening on YouTube, and discover incredible new content and Australian creators.