Trying to pick the best Youtube videos of X time period is a lot like trying to pick your favorite flavor of ice cream when you haven’t eaten for two weeks. Everything just looks so good and tasty—or viewable—that it would be impossible to concoct a meaningful “Best Flavors Ever” list with even the slightest bit of accuracy. Everything just looks so scrumptious!

Well, the same problem is happening in our attempt to catalog the 25 greatest Youtube videos of 2010. And, to stretch the analogy even further, we’ve noticed that not everyone likes the same flavors of ice cream: Your Rocky Road of groin-hitting videos is our Orange Sherbet of pranks; Your Strawberry Katy Perry music video is our Chocolate cat movie; et cetera. In short, what you love isn’t necessarily what we love, and vice versa.

So how, then, do we come up with a “best-of” list?

It’s simple: Rather than ranking videos in a one-to-25 kind of approach, or even considering videos on basis of sheer popularity alone, we’ve attempted to come up with a hybrid listing of videos that have become a part of the general Internet consciousness that are, themselves, themed around particular topics that tend to be of-interested to your average daily Youtube viewer.  And, no, not all of these videos were created in 2010 -- that doesn't mean that they didn't go viral in 2010, however!

Makes sense? No? Yes? Let’s begin.

 

Best Commercial

While not a commercial per se, Old Spice Guy’s touching tribute to a very particular question submitted as part of Old Spice’s online Q&A campaign brings warm fuzzy feelings to one’s heart and underarm.

 

Runner-up:

 

 

Best Excuse to Vomit

Just watching this video nearly gave us a panic attack. Twelve hours a day, seven days a week at 1850 feet? We bring you a combination of the world’s worst job and best "Hi Mom" moment.

 

 

Best Rocking Out Sans Instruments

Relive your college days with the greatest a cappella performance of 2010, tied to one of the greatest movies of 2010, which itself was one of the most complicated plotlines of 2010, which was but a dream of…

 

Tangentially Related Runner-up:

Best Meal to Offer Paramedics When They Arrive

Youtube is full of various mishaps people make throughout the course of their lives—generally the kind that likely involve a chit-chat with the ol’ ambulance crew post-bad-decision. This one isn’t graphic, but it is a bit messy… and tasty!

 

 

[NSFW] Best Way to Get Fired If You Play This At Work

Seriously. Don’t play these at work. This category rewards the videos that will get you fired as fast as one can spell the words “pink slip,” provided you aren’t using headphones to watch these Youtube gems. Nothing pornographic or overly naughty here, folks—which is the first thing you’ll want to tell your boss, trust us.

(language!)

 

Runner-up (language!):

 

Honorable Mention (buttocks!):

 

On page two: Best Meme That Deserves a Watermelon to the Face... and more!

Best Meme That Deserves a Watermelon to the Face

This is the last time you should ever watch, talk about, link, laugh at, be confused by, or otherwise enjoy or hate this particular Youtube video. It’s over. The fad is done. Put this one out to pasture… then shoot it with a 12-gauge. It’s the humane thing to do.

 

 

Best Copycat of the Best Meme That Deserves a Watermelon to the Face

This is the last time you should ever think about creating a video based on a previous fad that you watched, talked about, linked, laughed at, was confused by, or otherwise enjoyed or hated. It’s over. The fad is beyond done. Put this one out to pasture… then tie a grenade to your video camera and chuck both on over. It’s the humane thing to do.

 

 

Best Use of Michael Cera

Resident geek-who-plays-the-same-role-in-all-movies gets his own category in this roundup for two key reasons: Scott Pilgrim brought massive geek cred to audiences worldwide… and, really, Michael Cera is in everything nowadays, and nobody has time to watch all of his many appearances. We give you… the best.

 

Runner-up (no embedding!  Sorry!):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-jMruFHTwrY

 

 

Best Political “Is This For Real” Moment

Regardless of your political persuasion, there’s something potentially catastrophic looming on the horizon whenever candidates take to the digital airwaves to share their opinions. Or, in the case of Mr. Marceaux, replace “catastrophic” with “awesome.”

 

Runner-up:

 

 

Best Movie That Should Have Been Made Into A Real Movie

Dysentery sucks, but not as badly as a broken leg… or a Reptile encounter.

 

Runner-up:

 

On page three: The Best Sports Videos... and unintentional shots to the groin!

 

 

Best International Sanity Check

Sometimes, one just has to expand one’s mindset to a worldlier viewpoint in order to best appreciate what other cultures have to offer. In this case, dancing and… headbutts to the groin.

 

Runner-up:

 

 

Best Use of a Sick Day

You, and about one billion other people, all had the same kind of headache/cough/stomach flu/horrific disaster on the exact same day this year. And, yet, oddly… you were all cured at the exact same moment…

Best Best Friend

Man’s best friend indeed; $20 if you can train him wash the car as well.

 

 

Best Chatroulette Musical Act

This is truly an inspirational tale, as anyone who brings a bit of mirth and joy to a service that’s basically a digital garden of genitals deserves a medal, if not a ticker-tape parade, if not a recording contrac… oh. Wait.

 

Runner-up:

On page three: Fighting the good fight with iPhones... and Maximum Nerd Rage

 

 

Best Obviously Computer-Generated Translation of Real Life

You can’t go five minutes on the Internet without seeing one of those system-narrated, crudely animated Xtranormal videos. And, yet, these two excellent animations translate real-world challenges to an absurd degree of accuracy… trust us. (Heads up - these both feature healthy doses of swearing).

 

Runner-up:

 

 

Best Previously Famous Internet Celebrity Who’s Still Trying to Keep it Real

Ahh, fame can be so fleeting—just ask that Chocolate Rain guy who, well, didn’t really do anything important beyond his little song about tasty water droplets. But what’s worse? Sticking to the same meme for years in hopes that it carries forward… or trying to revitalize your previously awesome musical career by singing backup for a guy that sings about his butt? Oh, how the mighty have fallen.

 

 

Best Animal Video That’s Still a Little Bit Weird

Trying to pick the “best animal video,” or dare we say it—the “cutest animal video”—will open up this site to a flamewar of epic proportions. Thus, we bring you a snapshot of animals doing things that are very exciting to watch, but still a little bit left of center, if you catch our drift. Spoiler: Nature is weird.

 

Runner-up:

 

 

Best Way to Blow Your Vocal Cords When Gaming (From Someone Not Named “wafflepwn”)

Let’s face it. Youtube star “wafflepwn” has cornered the market on pissed-off nerd rage videos, even if there’s a pretty high likelihood that most of what he’s posted to Youtube has been completely fake. So, that in mind, we present to you the best examples why some people should be forced to put down the controller/keyboard/mountain dew for 15 minutes every hour. Also, NSFW language is as present as World of Warcraft is addictive: You have been warned.

 

Runner-up:

 

 

Best Use of an Afternoon/Weekend/Week/Month

Seriously, all this time likely spent for a mere 37,000 views? For what it’s worth, however, this video is a pretty awesome example of what happens when you try to fight the Dragon of Video Compression some one thousand times over. It also gives us nightmares.

On page five: Eating various items to one's face and a billion-dollar icing!

Best Way to Make Your Coach Defriend You on Facebook

Trying to pick the best “you done wrong” video in the sports world is super-difficult. Still, there’s something extra-special about this combination of failure, relief, triumph, and anger—especially given that it all occurs in the span of roughly five seconds or so. To be a fly on the wall in the locker room…

 

 

Best Magneto Impression

No Sir Ian on these ones. However, there’s nothing wrong with pointing out that some people just have a natural attraction to various objects in life, be they baseballs, or water bottles, or…

 

Runner-up:

 

 

Best Reason to Both Keep Your Current Job and Find a New Job

Actors, take note: it’s not the background that ultimately sells this video, it’s the foreground one-hundred-percent of the way. Freebird, anyone?

Best Omission of the Phrase “Spoiler Alert” in the Title

Even the star of this video has his own Web site. World, we give up. Pop culture has officially jumped the shark.

 

 

Best Icing of a Bro by a Billionaire

Smirnoff missed a major opportunity by refusing to take this Internet fad and spin it off into a full-fledged advertising campaign. Even more catastrophic? In the time it took this guy’s bro to drink down his beverage, said “icer” probably made more than either of us will see in a year. Sigh.

 

 

Best Child + Car Video (That Doesn’t Involve David, a Dentist, or Christian Bale)

We have nothing against children that are all loopy after they’ve finished a trip to the dentist, nor do we have anything against those who remix profanity-stricken rants into videos of said children returning from a dental visit. But that’s merely scratching the surface of the emerging, “Children do strange and/or awesome stuff in cars” Youtube category.

 

Runner-up: