The inaugural YouTybe Music Award nominees have been announced, an all categories take pains to recognize the democratic nature of a platform where videos can be uploaded, shared, liked, subscribed, commented embedded and even put into playlists.
Artist of the Year features the expected rundown of massive stars — from Eminem to Rihanna — but also includes "Epic Rap Battles of History" as an artist — which might strike you as ludicrous, but as the nominee video's top comment states, "ERB are the only artists who actually make their content for YouTube. They're the only nominee who should even be eligible!"
There's also a Video of The Year category, boasting ten of the "most loved, watched and shared music videos on YouTube over the last 12 months." Other categories include Innovation of the Year, which I'd say is like a Breakthrough Video category — celebrating the most innovative videos — but don't confuse it with the YouTube Breakthrough category, which recognizes those music artists who went from up-and-comers to phoenemons, but again, only if you make sure to not confuse it with YouTube Phenomenon of the Year, which is a separate category to recognize the videos that inspired the most other videos (ie: Harlem Shake, memes, blah, blah). In other words, it's kind of confusing and random, but this whole endeavor seems to be all about having fun and drawing attention to YouTube, the artists (and their sponsor, Kia), so I think we can just roll with it.
Also curious: No mention of the directors (a wrong which I right below, when possible)...
See below for the main video category nominees and visit the YouTube Music Awards Page for additional categories, featurettes and more...
Video of the Year:
- Demi Lovato "Heart Attack" (Chris Applebaum, dir.)
- Epic Rap Battles of History "Barack Obama vs. Mitt Romney" (Dave McCary, dir.)
- Girls Generation "I Got A Boy"
- Justin Bieber f/ Nicki Minaj "Beauty And A Beat" (Justin Bieber and Jon Chu, dir.)
- Lady Gaga "Applause" (Inez & Vinoodh, dir.)
- Macklemore & Ryan Lewis "Same Love" (Ryan Lewis & Jon Augustavo, dir.)
- One Direction "Best Song Ever" (Ben Winston, dir.)
- PSY "Gentleman" (PSY, dir.)
- Selena Gomez "Come & Get It" (Anthony Mandler, dir.)
Innovation of the Year
- Anamanaguchi “Endless Fantasy”
- Atoms For Peace “Ingenue” (Garth Jennings, dir.)
- Bat For Lashes “Lilies” (Peter Sluszka, dir.)
- DeStorm “See Me Standing” (Matei Dima, dir.)
- Toro Y Moi “Say That” (HARRYS, dir.)
