The news: YouTube is scrapping its Trending page and Trending Now list, citing the growing diversity of topics on its platform and rise of content discovery through search and recommendation algorithms.

Instead, YouTube will promote popular content in category-specific charts, such as Trending Music Videos and Weekly Top Podcast Shows.

“We’ll keep showing viewers the videos that we think they’ll love through personalized recommendations. … This way, we can show a wider range of popular content that’s relevant, and it feels more natural to how viewers already find new videos,” the company stated in a blog post, per TechCrunch.

Personalization is the new ‘trending’: This change aligns with YouTube’s ongoing efforts to streamline the path to content discovery, including an AI search function added in June. YouTube cited the number of niche communities, fandoms, and micro-trends as drivers for this change.

• “Back when we first launched the Trending page in 2015, the answer to ‘what’s trending’ was a lot simpler to capture with a singular list of viral videos that everyone was talking about,” the company said.
• The change could also address creator complaints that massive viewership numbers were needed to appear in Trending, making virality less attainable for smaller accounts.

Not topping the charts: Ranking systems once central to platforms like Tumblr, MySpace, and BuzzFeed may be outdated, as trending lists are no longer the primary way Gen Zers discover content.

• Only 35% of Gen Zers find new content through charts and trending lists, per Toluna, compared with 72% via social media and 53% through recommendations from friends and family.
• Preferred genre drives viewing choices for 46% of global internet users, per Ampere, which could help YouTube’s category-specific chart recommendations resonate.

Streaming division: While YouTube is challenging streamers for video dominance, retiring its Trending pages runs counter to what streaming services are doing.

• Netflix, Max, and others all prominently display lists of what’s most popular in users’ regions, which can serve as social proof that a title is worth watching and help guide users through crowded content libraries.
• YouTube, by contrast, is doubling down on personalized discovery and betting that feeds now outweigh popularity.

Our take: Brands should shift their focus beyond chasing virality and toward building content that fits audience niches. Reaching users through personalized feeds and hyper-specific categories could deliver more consistent engagement.