The Trends List endpoint supports three sort modes via
sort_by. Each answers a different question. Most confusion about trend
ordering comes from expecting one mode to answer another mode’s question.
Biggest is not the same as rising
rising ranks by acceleration of posting activity: is this trend’s
content being created faster than its own recent baseline? It does not rank
by total size. A trend with millions of views and a large, steady stream of videos is
established: it tops recommended, but its curve is flat, so it sits low on
rising. A small trend whose activity is compounding week over week is the
one rising is built to surface. That’s the window where creating content
for it puts you early.
If a 6.1M-view trend appears below a 43K-view trend on rising, that is the
sort working as intended: the smaller trend is accelerating harder relative
to its own baseline. For “biggest overall”, use recommended.
Rising means rising now
The rising signal is anchored to a trend’s latest evidence and fades as
that evidence ages. Two trends with the same climb rank very differently if
one climbed this week and the other went quiet three weeks ago:
Each trend’s momentum value ranges from −1 to +1: positive = building,
negative = fading, near zero = steady, too little evidence to judge, or
evidence that has aged out of relevance. There is no cliff: the value decays
smoothly, so a trend that was hot three weeks ago drifts down the list rather
than vanishing.
Freshness follows the most recent wave
freshness_score (0–1) measures how recent a trend’s content activity
is, weighted toward its newest wave of videos. It is a recency level,
independent of size. A trend can be small and fresh, or huge and stale.
Trends often resurface: a format that had early buzz and then a strong second
wave reads as fresh again, because the score follows the recent wave rather
than averaging over the trend’s whole lifetime.
timeliness_status bands the same signal into recent / active / stale
/ cold if you prefer labels over thresholds.
If you’re rendering your own “fresh” or “hot” badge, decide which question it
should answer. “Recently active content” → threshold on
freshness_score (or use timeliness_status). “Act on this now” →
threshold on momentum (e.g. ≥ 0.1). “New to the catalog” → sort by
newest and compare emerged_at against your last visit. Mixing these
produces badges that feel wrong on big-but-established trends.
Field quick reference
Which sort for which workflow
- “I check in every morning”: use
newest, and stop at the first trend you
recognize from yesterday.
- “I plan content weekly”: use
recommended, filtered to your categories.
- “I want to catch waves early”: use
rising, and prioritize entries that
are also recent/active on timeliness_status.
Legacy sort values
Older sort_by values keep working forever; they resolve to their closest
current equivalent instead of erroring:
