It was exactly 17 years ago today that Jawed Karim, a 25-year-old guy, published the first ever YouTube video, marking the beginning of a platform that has since become the most popular source for video streaming. The platform is now giving any person with a camera and an interesting concept the opportunity to make money from their own work.
The first ever YouTube video dubbed “Me at the zoo” is featuring the co-founder of the streaming platform, Jawed Karim. In the 19 second long clip he is pointing out elephants at San Diego Zoo
The first ever YouTube video: Me at the zoo
The video, like most clips that debuted on the streaming site in those early days, lacks the more professionally produced qualities that characterize so much of today’s content.
“All right, so here we are in front of the elephants, the cool thing about these guys is that they have really, really, really long trunks, and that’s cool, and that’s pretty much all there is to say,” Karim says in the video.
Although Karim had no idea at the time, when he shot and published the video, that YouTube would become the phenomenon it is today. Nor that his film would go on to receive hundreds of millions of views in subsequent years.
A month after Karim’s the first ever YouTube video was publishedin April 2005, the site debuted a public beta before an official launch in November of that year. In early 2006, Karim left YouTube to pursue a master’s degree in computer science at Stanford University, but he got tens of millions of dollars when Google acquired the company for $1.65 billion just months later. Karimthen launched a venture fund called Youniversity Ventures (now YVentures), which has backed companies including Airbnb and Reddit. Reddit is now houses millions of users and the platfrom is driving trends. A lot of discussion has been made about Stolen art: r/Place NFTs lately.
Occasionally, when YouTube makes a change to the platform that he does not like, the creator of YouTube’s first video edits the description to express his view. For example, last year Karim blasted YouTube’s decision to eliminate public dislike counts.
The elephant clip has been seen more than 228 million times and received over 11 million comments since it was posted in April 2022. If you are unaware, Youtube added 4000 episodes of free TV shows to the platform so don’t forget to check them out.
