These are the top 10 YouTube Shorts niches that are getting crazy views and bringing in cash for content creators like you. We examined over 30 million videos encompassing a total of 1.3 trillion views over the last 90 days to determine the top Shorts niches.
YouTube Shorts for Tech Enthusiasts
If you’re trying to cash in on Shorts monetization, get more views, get more subscribers, or you just want to know what’s trending in YouTube Shorts right now, this video is for you. Here’s what we found, starting with number one.
Entertainment
Entertainment is by far the most popular Shorts niche, accounting for over 17% of all YouTube Shorts views over the last 90 days. But not just any entertainment content. People are mostly watching pranks, challenges, and a special genre known as oddly satisfying. Oddly satisfying videos are calming and almost hypnotic.
These types of videos work so well because they’re what I consider global-friendly. They work in any language and they oftentimes don’t include any speaking. You’re able to just watch these videos and understand what’s going on, making them easily consumed around the world, therefore racking up a ton of views via YouTube Shorts.
Food
The next niche is food. Now, food can be a lot of things.
Cooking tutorials, food reviews, mukbangs, but food content around chocolate, gummies, and meat-filled recipes are at the top of the charts. A good example of a creator killing it is albert_cancook. Albert takes his narrowly appealing cooking niche and makes it wildly appealing by recreating popular dishes from restaurants, TV shows, and movies. This short-form food format is the reason why his channel is skyrocketing on YouTube right now.
“And, according to Social Blade, his channel is getting 20,000 subscribers every single day. Friends, this is a great example of the thought process that you must have when creating YouTube Shorts. How can you take a subject that might only be interesting to a small group of people and make it interesting to the masses that are watching YouTube Shorts?
Video games
The third niche is video games. I know some of you are happy to hear this. The beautiful thing with gaming content is it’s attractive to viewers of all ages. Trend-jacking popular video games or new releases is a great way to drive up views quickly. Because of the general interest in certain games, viewers are already looking for content related to them. So you can just ride the wave of popularity and get more views without having to do a bunch of extra work.
In our research, we found that the games that are getting the most views from Shorts are Minecraft, Grand Theft Auto, and Fortnite.
Sports
The fourth niche is sports, specifically fishing, basketball, martial arts, and football. Now, unfortunately, a lot of the videos that are at the top of the charts in this niche are unoriginal copyrighted clips that are not going to help you get monetized on YouTube because frankly, you don’t own the content. (viewer whining) Take a look at A.M.Hoops. He turns rumors and facts about the NBA into videos that get millions of views. He combines original content with exciting sports clips in a way that’s considered fair use.
Now, the sports that you see popping up on the screen right now are the ones that are getting the most attention in YouTube Shorts and are getting the most views. So, if you play any of these sports or think you can make content around them, you probably should.
Crafting
Crafting videos have pulled over 16 billion views in the last 90 days. And I drew this. It’s not very good. It’s pretty bad. Art and crafting are skills that many people don’t have. And this makes it an attractive niche for skilled artists because of the much lower competition. Not many people can do things like this. And it’s easy to stand out even if you’re starting out, if you’re good.
The top categories in this niche were drawing, woodworking, and paper art. But things like sewing and metalwork were popular too. Even videos around pottery got millions of views. And even if you’re not planning to make these crafts, they’re so fun and entertaining to watch because you’re just getting to see the process and how it’s done. That’s why crafting videos are killing it on Shorts right now.
Family and parenting
Next up is family and parenting. Now, I honestly did not expect this to be so high up on the list until I saw these gender reveal videos, over 20 million views each. That made me realize, yeah, this niche is pretty popular. Now, I’m not saying that you should do gender reveals. I’m saying that if you want to make family-style content, this could be a great way to get millions of views. Marriage and wedding videos pulled in 2.6 billion views combined. Childbirth and pregnancy pulled in another 1.2 billion, and videos around fatherhood pulled in over 710 million.
Animal and pet videos
Number seven is animal and pet videos. Who doesn’t love a cute animal video? Sadie, Sadie! Follow the fingers. The fingers mean come to daddy. Footage of your pets doing funny things and reaction videos to animals seem to work best. But we see a lot of skits where pets are the main characters do extremely well.
Movies and television
Number eight is movies and television.
Now, this is another great one for writing trends. Netflix released the show “Wednesday” on November 23rd, 2022, and the channels that make content around the show during its spike in popularity got loads of views. In fact, seven of the top ten videos for TV series in the last 90 days were about “Wednesday.” The same thing happens when any popular TV show or movie gets released.
Netflix actually shows you what’s trending in the top 10 movies and shows that people are watching. Use this information to your advantage so you can find out what’s trending in the moment and make content.
Science and technology
Number nine is science and technology. Within this niche, science experiments came in third place, robotics came in second, and at the top of this niche is consumer electronics, mainly smartphones and tablets. And if you’re a tech channel, here’s a pro tip: iPhone-related hacks, pranks, and challenges do the best.
News
Number 10 is news. Here’s the thing: short-form content is a huge way that we all consume our news. This survey found that 57% of Gen Z gets their news from social media instead of traditional sources like TV and newspapers. And that number only goes up when we look at younger demographics.
Personally, I don’t have cable, I don’t read the newspaper. If I don’t see it on Twitter, TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, somewhere like that, I just miss it. Shorts around current events, politics, and trending news stories are crushing it on YouTube Shorts. If you’re trying to blow up on YouTube Shorts, we have a lot of content planned for you, from interviews with successful Shorts creators to revealing strategies that are driving millions of views. So subscribe and hit the notification bell so you don’t miss out.
“And these videos are great. Pick whichever one looks most helpful to you. I love you all. I’ll see you next time and keep creating.”
