MrBeast has won the highest accolade of Creator of the Year at the YouTube Streamy Awards for the second year running. The show, which was streamed on YouTube on Saturday (December 11th), was a light celebration of Online Content and Creators of the Year.
Bretman Rock was named show of the year and scriptless series for “30 Days With: Bretman Rock”.
Larray was billed as the master of ceremonies – an oddly formal old-school title for a show that had a decidedly youthful feel to it. “Party host” was more like that. Larray was joined by Issa, who was described in a press release as his best friend. The two openly gay guys had a casual relationship when they rode a double-decker bus through Los Angeles handing out Streamys to selected winners.
The show included two musical performances. Måneskin offered their hit remake of “Beggin” by The Four Seasons, one of the most distinctive rock singles of the year. Ari Lennox performed her sexy R&B hit “Pressure”. Lennox also did a short interview in which she said that Tyler, the creator, would be her dream partner.
The show featured creators Addison Rae, Anthony Padilla, Bella Poarch, Brent Rivera, Bretman Rock, Jarvis Johnson, Jeff Wittek, Lexi Rivera and Tinx, all of whom made special appearances with Larray and Issa on the Streamys bus.
Charli D’Amelio, winner of the Breakout Creator 2020, presented the award in this category to Bella Poarch, winner of 2021.
The show’s smartest move was the return of the Streamys Creator Honors, where previous Streamys winners honor creators whose work they have resonated with. This resulted in real interactions, with more established online personalities shaking hands with emerging talent. LaurDIY honored Remi Cruz, Mark Rober honored Jeremy Fielding, whom he called the “Mister Rogers of Engineering YouTube”, Bailey Sarian hailed vlogger commentator Swoop and author-podcaster Jay Shetty praised Amelie Zilber for using her platform to Have effective conversations about bullying, universal health care, gun violence, and body image.
MrBeast and #TeamSeas were highlighted in a special segment to showcase the work the YouTube community is doing to clean up litter from bodies of water around the world. (Even feather-light shows like this like to show they are aware of the problems in real life.)
There were 10 nominations for both Creator of the Year and Show of the Year, which is possibly the only thing that this breezy show with the Oscars (which will have 10 nominations for best picture starting next year), the Grammys ( where from next year there will be 10 nominees in each of the Big Four categories) and the Latin Grammys (where there have been 10 nominations in each of the Big Four categories since 2012).
In fact, the Streamys have a few things in common with these higher stakes shows. Again, there is excitement when “30 Days With: Bretman Rock” beat “Verzuz” for show of the year. (This lively Instagram hit won for the live show.)
And like the Grammys, only a fraction of the categories are presented on the show.
And it has well-known stars who aren’t shows. Will Smith, who won the crossover award, did not attend the show. Jimmy Kimmel shared a “Social Good” award with Mark Rober for “NEXT for AUTISM – Color the Spectrum Live”, but the late night talk show host didn’t participate either.
The nine other nominees for Creator of the Year were Addison Rae, Alexa Rivera, Avani Gregg, Bella Poarch, Brent Rivera, Charli D’Amelio, Dixie D’Amelio, Dream and Emma Chamberlain.
The show also featured Streamys premieres, where the creators gave first glimpses of the videos before posting them on their YouTube channels. The creators who did this included Dixie D’Amelio, Lexi Rivera, RDCWorld, Safiya Nygaard, and ZHC.
The YouTube Streamy Awards 2021 are produced by MRC Live & Alternative and Tubefilter. More information is available at www.streamys.org.
The show is available for on-demand streaming on YouTube.
Here is the full list of winners in all 47 categories.
The 2021 YouTube Streamy Awards are produced by MRC Live & Alternative, which is owned by MRC. MRC and Penske Media are joint parent companies of Billboard.