YouTube launched 20 new genre-specific animated effects for its Like button in October 2025 as part of a platform-wide interface redesign. These one-second animations activate upon pressing the Like button and tailor visuals to video content categories to enhance user interaction.
The animations differ based on the video’s genre. Music videos feature floating musical notes that drift upward briefly. Travel videos display a small airplane icon gliding across the screen. Sports videos show a basketball bouncing with a subtle arc. Additional categories receive themed visuals: comedy prompts confetti bursts, cooking illustrates steam rising from a pot, horror evokes flickering shadows, education presents a lightbulb illumination, pets trigger paw prints scattering, and film reels unspool frames. This set of 20 effects covers these and other genres, ensuring relevance to each content type.
YouTube's new like animations pic.twitter.com/n3FRtasP3D
— Andreas Storm (@avstorm) October 28, 2025
Engineers at YouTube describe the feature as an easter egg-style addition that introduces context-aware microinteractions. These provide instant, subtle feedback during the liking process. The animations last approximately one second and integrate seamlessly into the interface. They contribute character and enjoyment to the viewing experience without altering core functions. Like counts remain unaffected, and the video recommendation algorithm operates unchanged by these visuals.
The Like button’s redesign contrasts with the dislike button, which YouTube has left unmodified since eliminating public dislike counts in 2021. Users still access the dislike option privately, but no animations accompany it.
This update forms one element of a comprehensive UI refresh targeting YouTube’s video player on web, mobile, and TV platforms. The overhaul delivers a cleaner, more immersive appearance through rounded semi-transparent buttons that blend into video backgrounds. Double-tapping to seek within videos now includes improved scrubbing text, displaying precise timestamps and progress indicators for better navigation control.
Twitter user Andreas Storm assembled a compilation of videos demonstrating every new Like button animation. His shared content allows users to observe the full range of designs in action, from musical notes in songs to airplane flights in travel clips, facilitating discovery across genres.
