Remembering the First YouTube Video: 'Me at the Zoo' (2005)

YouTube has completely taken over the planet. The service has more than 2.5 billion monthly users. People use YouTube for entertainment, education, political messaging, as a search engine, and for many other things. Video as a source of information has proven its advantages over “boring” reading.

On April 23, 2005, YouTube co-founder Jawed Karim uploaded the very first video to the platform. Was it a presentation of YouTube? The first vlog? Maybe a reaction video? No. The first video on YouTube is called “Me at the zoo,” where a young Jawed Karim stands in front of elephants, talks about their long trunks, and ends with the phrase, “That’s pretty much all there is to say.”

At the time of writing, the video has 388 million views, 18 million likes, and 10 million comments. The most liked comment (4.5 million likes) comes from the official San Diego Zoo account, expressing pride that the very first YouTube video was filmed in their park.

Watch the very first YouTube video — sometimes history looks like this.

See also Altair BASIC 2.0: Microsoft’s First Commercial Software Product (1975).