The First-Ever YouTube Video Was Uploaded 15 Years Ago Today — Revisit 'Me at the Zoo'
Blast from the YouTube past!
On April 23, 2005 — 15 years ago today — the first-ever YouTube video was uploaded by co-founder Jawed Karim. The 18-second clip, titled “Me at the Zoo,” has amassed over 90 million views and is the only video on Karim’s channel.
At the beginning of the video, Karim, who was 25 at the time, says from the San Diego Zoo in California, “Alright, so here we are, in front of the elephants.”
“The cool thing about these guys is that they have really, really, really long, um, trunks. And that’s, that’s cool,” Karim continues, looking back at the elephants before adding, “And that’s pretty much all there is to say.”
One year after Karim created “Me at the Zoo,” he and fellow co-founders Steven Chen and Chad Hurley sold YouTube to Google for $1.65 billion, according to CNN.
The platforms now boasts over two billion users, according to YouTube, with over one billion hours of content watched daily.
According to the New York Times, Karim never did “take a salary, benefits or even a formal title” after launching YouTube. Instead, he went to Stanford for a master’s degree in computer science.
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Currently, YouTube’s most-watched video with over six billion views is the music video to Luis Fonsio and Daddy Yankee’s hit song “Despacito,” which debuted on January 12, 2017.
The next most-viewed video is the viral “Baby Shark Dance,” followed by the music videos to Ed Sheeran‘s “Shape of You” and Wiz Khalifa and Charlie Puth‘s “See You Again.”
YouTube has also launched its own streaming service, called YouTube Premium, home to ad-free TV shows and movies for $11.99 a month.
