3 Brands Among Top 10 YouTube Videos of the Year

This year, Ylvis was a hero to most.

The Norwegian duo's bizarre hit, The Fox (What Does the Fox Say?) was the biggest YouTube video of the year, at 273 million views and counting. Incredibly, Ylvis topped Harlem Shake, which was the Web video meme everyone was talking about for much of 2013.

But while silly songs and fun dances dominated the YouTube charts this year, for the first time ever, three brands made the top 10 ranking, per Google. That group includes Evian's baby&me, Volvo's recent breakout featuring Van Damme's Epic Split and Telekinetic Coffee Shop Surprise, a prank/stunt conducted for the movie Carrie.

Also of note was the complete absence of traditional media, or even an established Web publisher, on the list. While born-on-YouTube phenomena like The Lonely Island and Epic Rap Battles in History cracked the top 10 (as of course did a Miley-inspired response) there was nothing from Disney, or CBS, or MTV or even BuzzFeed. That would seem to prove once again that YouTube is a different animal.

Here's a fun compilation YouTube put together of the year's video trends, including apperances by Jimmy Fallon and Freddie Wong.

Other interesting brand takeaways on the list:

- Volvo's video inspired more than 1,200 videos to use "epic split" in their title. Those have generated 4.2 million views to date

- Similarly, viewers have created 334 versions of Evian’s Baby&Me; in addition, 6.9 million viewers have shared the video on social networks.

Check out the biggest videos of the year, per YouTube:

Ylvis (What Does The Fox Say?)