[Editor’s Note: Tubefilter Charts is a weekly rankings column from Tubefilter with data provided by GospelStats. It’s exactly what it sounds like; a top number ranking of YouTube channels based on statistics collected within a given time frame. Check out all of our Tubefilter Charts with new installments every week right here.]
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A year ago, most of the short-form-oriented Chart Toppers in this week’s U.S. Top 50 were off the proverbial radar. Now, they’re the most-watched YouTube Shorts channels in the United States, and their long-form brethren are struggling to keep up.
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The short-form creator who bested all others in the U.S. Top 50 seemed to have luck on his side as he zipped up the charts.
Chart Toppers
Justin Flom has come close to the #1 spot since breaking out on Shorts last November. To seal the deal, he only needed a bit of magic. Finally, in September, the Minnesota-born illusionist summited the U.S. Top 50 for the first time. His tricky short-form videos brought in 491 million weekly views, putting him just ahead of the next two channels in the chart. Though Flom has more than 10 billion lifetime YouTube views to his name, he needed a week-over-week bump of 82% in order to ascend seven spots to #1.
TheSoulMusic FUN had a big month in August, and as the calendar turned over to September, the tuneful hub maintained its strong pace. With the support of its parent company — global publisher TheSoul — TheSoulMusic FUN reached third place in the monthly U.S. Top 100. In the latest weekly chart, it did one better by cruising into second place in the U.S. Top 50. The relatively new channel crossed one billion lifetime YouTube impressions thanks to its 478.2 million weekly views.
If TheSoulMusic FUN was our biggest gainer in August, MaviGadget deserves the same title for July, when it posted two #1 finishes in the U.S. Top 50. Even after cooling off a bit, MaviGadget is still hanging in third place in our all-American ranking. With its emphasis on machinery and satisfying conclusions, the YouTube Shorts hub rolled up 476.2 million weekly views. That sum represented a 34% week-over-week increase.
The channel with the most appearances in the U.S. Top 50 is CoComelon – Nursery Rhymes, and though it is currently surrounded by short-form channels, it’s still locked into the #4 place in our chart. CoComelon maintained its status as a top-five stalwart by offering its young viewers a mix of hour-long uploads and character-driven Shorts. During the first week of September, that combination brought 421.8 million weekly views to the primary CoComelon YouTube channel.
Who’s that rounding out this week’s U.S. top five? Why, it’s Jason Derulo! After turning into a short-form meme creator in order to promote his new music, Derulo has established a sustained presence in the U.S. Top 50. He just earned 397.5 million weekly views to pay his first-ever visit to the #5 spot.
Top Gainers
A decade after its initial release, the automotive physics simulator BeamNG has become a hot video game on YouTube Shorts. Videos that combine popular characters with vehicular collisions are getting millions of views and surging up our weekly charts.
This week, the BeamNG channel that made the biggest leap was Franq Drive. The YouTube Shorts hub has distributed hit videos that resemble typical BeamNG clips: A bunch of Shorts-famous figures drive down a road. Some of them get crushed by an obstacle and others do not.
In one of Franq Drive’s most-watched Shorts uploads, the featured characters cruise down the road in toilet bowls before a skibidi toilet head butts them into a pool of lava. I’d say that’s a pretty good metaphor for skibidi’s dominance of the Global Top 50 during the summer of 2023.
The success of that video reminds us that skibidi toilet is still a dominant trend in the short-form world. On YouTube Shorts, Franq Drive collected 211.9 million weekly views during our most recent seven-day measurement period. That was good for a 70% week-over-week bump that led Franq Drive to its best-ever finish in the U.S. Top 50: 19th place.
Franq Drive’s BeamNG videos — and many others — are also noteworthy for using the Smash Mouth hit “All Star” as Shrek’s theme song. With the recent death of Smash Mouth frontman Steve Harwell, these videos double as tributes to the band’s most famous work. That may sound like an odd form of memorialization, but given the strange internet subculture that has surrounded “All Star,” it’s a fitting form of recognition.
Channel Distribution
This week, there are 37 YouTube Shorts channels in the U.S. Top 50.
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