Featured Image Credit: YouTube/@jawed
Topics: News, Social Media, Technology, YouTube
Amelia Jones
In a time way before makeup bloggers and funny animal fails, the first ever YouTube was posted in 2005 - and you'll be amazed what it's about and how much money it's made since then.
Hailed as the most visited website in the world after its parent company Google, YouTube has carved a league of its own as one of the oldest and leading video-sharing platforms.
Founded by American software engineers and entrepreneurs, Jawed Karim, Chad Hurley, and Steve Chan on 14 February, 2005, anyone with an internet connection would have seen the viral videos shared on YouTube at least once in their life.
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From 'Charlie bit my finger!' and 'Sneezing Baby Panda', to Pinkfong's 'Baby Shark' and PSY's 'Gangnam Style', the videos have become part of the fabric of global culture.
But the first-ever YouTube video wasn't posted by MrBeast, PewDiePie or CarryMinati - but by co-founder Jawed Karim on 23 April, 2005, documenting a trip to the zoo.
'Me at the zoo' is a 19-second video featuring a then 25-year-old Karim talking in front of two elephants at the San Diego Zoo in California - pointing out their long trunks and calling them 'cool'.
That seminal video has since been watched over 262 million times with Karim gaining a massive 3.46m subscribers to his single-video channel.
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And while, according to The New York Times, Karim never took a 'salary, benefits or even a formal title', he walked away with a whopping $64m in shares with the platform currently valued at $160 billion - not bad for less than 20 seconds of filming, eh?
Using Karim's camera, it was recorded by his high school friend, Yakov Lapitsky, a University of DelawarePhD student at the time, who was with Karim in San Diego to deliver his research to the American Chemical Society.
While the somewhat grainy video is forgettable, it was the ideal model for what YouTube hoped to become - a platform where people could share real moments from their own lives, whether it's interesting or otherwise.
The format paved out a new way for people to access and consume news with YouTube's website stating: “Our mission is to give everyone a voice and show them the world.”
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The comments beneath the video are almost as iconic as the video itself with one from San Diego Zoo three years ago stating: "We're so honored that the first ever YouTube video was filmed here!"
Another user said: "My kids will learn about this video in their history lessons."
A third commented: "Admit it. You’ve watched it more than once."