In 2005, before the rise of makeup bloggers and funny animal fails, the first-ever YouTube video was posted. It may surprise you to learn what the video is about and how much money it has made since then.
YouTube has established itself as one of the oldest and most popular video-sharing platforms, and it is considered the most visited website in the world after its parent company, Google.
Founded by American software engineers and entrepreneurs Jawed Karim, Chad Hurley, and Steve Chan on February 14, 2005, YouTube has become an integral part of global culture with viral videos like ‘Charlie bit my finger!’ and ‘Sneezing Baby Panda’, as well as Pinkfong’s ‘Baby Shark’ and PSY’s ‘Gangnam Style’.
The first-ever YouTube video, however, was not posted by today’s biggest YouTubers such as MrBeast, PewDiePie, or CarryMinati, but by co-founder Jawed Karim. He uploaded ‘Me at the zoo’ on April 23, 2005, documenting his trip to the San Diego Zoo in California.
The 19-second video shows a 25-year-old Karim in front of two elephants, pointing out their long trunks and describing them as ‘cool’.
Despite being a simple video, ‘Me at the zoo’ has been viewed over 262 million times and has earned Karim 3.46 million subscribers on his single-video channel.
According to The New York Times, despite not receiving a salary, benefits, or a formal title, Jawed Karim earned a staggering $64 million in shares. The platform he helped create is currently valued at $160 billion, which is not bad for less than 20 seconds of filming.
The video was recorded using Karim’s camera by his high school friend, Yakov Lapitsky, who was a Ph.D. student at the University of Delaware at the time. He was with Karim in San Diego to present his research to the American Chemical Society.
While the video quality is not great, it served as the perfect prototype for what YouTube wanted to become: a platform where people could share real moments from their lives, whether they were interesting or not.
This format paved the way for a new approach to accessing and consuming news, as YouTube’s website states: “Our mission is to give everyone a voice and show them the world.”
Furthermore, the comments on this video are as legendary as the video itself with one of them being from the San Diego Zoo itself 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.”
