From Shakira's hypnotic dance video supporting global education to a plastic bag parody narrated by Jeremy Irons, many of the top social change videos this year were made to inform and entertain.

In January, the YouTube community rallied as a devastating earthquake took hundreds of thousands of lives in Haiti. The American Red Cross was one of the first organizations to mobilize on YouTube, attracting millions of views of this video within the first 48 hours of the disaster. In the following weeks, dozens of celebrities banded together to re-create “We Are the World” and raise millions of dollars for afflicted Haitians.

Later in the year, citizens used YouTube to take a strong stand for LGBT rights. Lady Gaga's impassioned message to the Senate about "Don't Ask, Don't Tell," a flash-mob video lambasting Target for their donations to anti-gay candidates, and Dan Savage's vlog that launched the “It Gets Better” movement against gay bullying, all cracked the Top 10. Here’s the full list:

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• Check out the rest of our 2010 lists for the top 10s in:

Sports	News	Trailers	Parody	Non-profit
Tech Culture	Hip-hop	Vehicles	Animals	Most Discussed
Short Films	People	International music	Holidays

Ramya Raghavan, YouTube News and Politics Manager