Will Smith in YouTube Rewind 2018 — Will Smith looking through large stationary binoculars at a mountain viewpoint in YouTube Rewind 2018.

Will Smith in YouTube Rewind 2018

2018catchphrase / reaction imageclassic

Published October 7, 2026

Will Smith in YouTube Rewind 2018 refers to jokes built around actor Will Smith's bookending appearance in YouTube's December 2018 Rewind video, where he announces 'It's Rewind time' and later peers through binoculars at a Fortnite bus muttering 'That's hot'1. The two short beats were lifted straight from the clip and turned into reaction images and green screen edits that spread on Reddit and YouTube2.

youtube culture memes green screen memes celebrity reaction memes catchphrase memes 2018 memes

Overview

The meme is built from two short Will Smith moments that bookend YouTube's 2018 Rewind. In the opening, Smith declares 'It's Rewind time,' a line that got pulled into reaction images about reliving memories or cringing at the past1. Near the end, he laughs quietly, strolls over to a pair of binoculars pointed at a Fortnite battle bus, looks through them and says 'Ah, that's hot. That is hot,' which editors cut out as a standalone bit1.

The 'That's hot' snippet works mostly as a green screen exploitable. The bus gets swapped for whatever the editor wants Smith to be ogling, and the deadpan reaction sells the joke2. The 'It's Rewind time' half runs as an image macro on Reddit, where the picture of Smith grinning is paired with captions about scrolling back through old posts, old relationships or dated memes3.

Origin & Background

Platform
YouTube (source) / Reddit (viral spread)
Date
2018

YouTube uploaded 'YouTube Rewind 2018: Everyone Controls Rewind' on December 6, 2018, with Smith appearing in the cold open and the closing beat2. The video quickly became the most disliked video on the platform, and Smith's two lines were among the earliest segments that viewers singled out for parody1.

The clip itself was produced by YouTube rather than by any single meme creator, so the format has no confirmed originator. Edits of Smith's binocular scene started showing up on YouTube within days of the Rewind upload, with user Funsline posting a green screen version that let other users drop in their own visuals behind the Fortnite bus1.

How It Spread

Parodies arrived almost immediately after Rewind went up on December 6, 20181. On YouTube, the Funsline green screen edit opened the door for a run of 'That's hot' remixes, with user Sir Froge posting an edit that pulled over 24,000 views3. Additional edits from Amaru and radflyTV picked up roughly 2,600 and 22,000 views respectively, treating Smith's deadpan reaction as a reusable punchline aimed at whatever absurd thing the editor wanted him to see4.

On Reddit, the 'It's Rewind time' line moved as a reaction image rather than a video edit. A post by TheDumPenguin on /r/dankmemes passed 28,000 points, and a /r/liebmann post poking fun at /r/funny broke 38,000 points1. The split between the two formats, video edits for 'That's hot' and image macros for 'It's Rewind time,' kept both halves of the clip in circulation at the same time without stepping on each other1.

Timeline

2018-12-06

YouTube uploads 'YouTube Rewind 2018: Everyone Controls Rewind,' featuring Will Smith at the opening and closing of the video.

2018-12

YouTube user Funsline posts a green screen edit of the binoculars scene, enabling 'That's hot' exploitables.

2018-12

Sir Froge's 'That's hot' edit on YouTube passes 24,000 views.

2018-12

Reddit posts by TheDumPenguin on /r/dankmemes and /r/liebmann use the 'It's Rewind time' still as a reaction image, pulling 28,000 and 38,000 points.

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