YouTube in Germany

YouTube is the most popular video platform. Its German language version was launched in November 2007. More than three quarters of Internet users in Germany are said to visit YouTube at least monthly. As of 2021, the most subscribed channel located in Germany is "HaerteTest" ("toughness test") with 19 million subscribers, and the most subscribed personal German-language channel is Bianca Heinicke's "BibisBeautyPalace" with 5.9 million subscribers, followed by and Gronkh. (table)
The most popular German channels are in a spectrum of the categories beauty and fashion, lifestyle, pranks, gaming, films and theatre, news, music, and opinionated video blogging. Music videos and challenge videos span across the categories.
History
In March 2009, many music videos became unavailable in Germany due to an expired agreement with the GEMA.
The first German channel to surpass a million subscribers is "Y-TITTY", on December 31st, 2012, the day before New Year's Eve.
In autumn of 2014, the YouTubers and filmmakers Julien Bam, Simon Unge, Cheng Loew, and Felix von der Laden completed a six-week tour of over 1300 kilometres through Germany, which they have documented as a video blog.
In late 2014, the popular German multi-channel network "MediaKraft" faced controversy over poor support of creators, deceptive contracts, threats and intimidation, spontaneous deletion of clients' videos, and criticism termination.
In mid-2015, the ensemble cast movie "" was published, featuring several major German YouTube personalities including Bianca Heinicke and Dagmar Kazakov, the "Y-TITTY" group, Simon Desue, and Joyce Ilg.
In February 2016, gaming channel "Gronkh" became the first channel to surpass four million subscribers, primarily featuring Minecraft content.
In early 2016, the German-Afghani YouTuber "ApoRed" released a song titled "Everyday Saturday" to celebrate him crossing a million subscribers. The song uses the instrumental of "Bugatti" from "Ace Hood", and quickly became the most disliked video of a German YouTuber. He later reframed the original song as a "remix" and released a revised edition of the song.
In July 2016, shortly after the Nice truck attack, "ApoRed" ran into controversy for a video, "bomb prank", in which he frightened pedestrians by throwing a bag he pretended to be a bomb inside.
Throughout 2016, 's vlog channel "Tanzverbot" quickly rose to popularity, with over 200.000 subscribers and around 40 million views before 2017. His early videos' hallmarks were angry rants about occurrences in his life and harsh criticism of larger YouTubers. His topics changed throughout the years. As of 2021, he has over a million subscribers.
Since 2017, the most subscribed German-language channel is "BibisBeautyPalace", founded in 2012 and operated by Bianca Heinicke, with close to six million subscribers as of 2021. The most subscribed international channel based in Germany was "Freekickerz" with then about five million subscribers.
In March 2017, in an event dubbed "adpocalypse", a number of major advertisers and prominent companies began to pull their advertising campaigns from YouTube over concerns that their ads were appearing on objectionable and/or extremist content. Revenue to some German creators was cut to less than half.
On May 5th, 2017, Bianca Heinicke released the song "", whose music video raised to the most downvoted video of any German YouTube channel within days, and was even discussed on popular channels outside Germany, such as Pyrocynical and Reaction Time.
In June 2018, major German YouTuber and filmmaker "Julien Bam" founded a dance school named the "Bam School". It shut down in October 2019 due to insolvency from operating costs.
In May 2019, the viral video "The destruction of the CDU" by Rezo lead to a medial upheaval. It was viewed ten million times within a week.
In November 2019, the secondary channel of "ApoRed", "RedSama", with around 1.5 million subscribers, got terminated as a result of showing modifications of the popular "Fortnite" video game which are prohibited by its publisher "Epic Games".
In late 2019, Julien Bam, one of the most subscribed German-language channels, announced ceasing operations. Their videos' hallmark was a high editing effort and much use of special effects and 3D animations, produced with the help of a staff.
In 2020, cartoonist and comedian and mid-sized creator "Mii Mii" aired a series analyzing prank videos done by "Leon Machère", one of the most popular in the German scene. Leon's videos were revealed as staged. In early 2021, Mii Mii's channel was intermittently suspended, .
Appearances in YouTube Rewind
German YouTubers have made several appearances in YouTube Rewind. Bianca Heinicke (BibisBeautyPalace) and his spouse Julian Claßen (Julienco) appeared in 2015 and 2016; and Kelly Svirakova (MrsVlog) in 2018.

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