About 15 years ago, on April 23, 2005, a guy named Jawed Karim uploaded the very first video to YouTube. This 18-second video was called “Me at the zoo,” and it’s been watched more than 284 million times. Interestingly, it’s the only video on Karim’s channel.
In the video, Karim is just a young guy talking about elephants and their long trunks while standing in front of them. Unlike today’s YouTube videos that often ask you to subscribe or like, Karim simply ends by saying, “And that’s pretty much all there is to say.”
A year after this video, Karim and his friends sold YouTube to Google for a massive $1.65 billion. Now, YouTube has more than 2 billion people using it every month.
During these 15 years, YouTube has had both good and bad moments. There have been issues with videos promoting hate speech and drama involving famous YouTubers like PewDiePie.
Some content creators have also had complaints. On the bright side, YouTube has helped many people become famous, introduced a streaming service called YouTube Red with original shows and movies, and become a place for all sorts of videos.
Every day, people watch one billion hours of content on the platform, all thanks to Karim’s “Me at the zoo” video.p
