It all began at the zoo — what was the first video on YouTube?

It's been 20 years since YouTube co-founder Jawed Karim uploaded his first video, "Me at the zoo", on April 23, 2005. The modest 18-second video, in which the 25-year-old programmer discusses the elephants' "very, very long trunks" near the elephant enclosure, became the starting point for the world's largest video hosting service. Today, exactly two decades later, the video has been viewed more than 355 million times, and YouTube has become the main platform for global digital culture.

Android Authority writes about it.

What was the first video on YouTube like?

Back in 2005, recording in 240p was commonplace, and editing and sound design were a luxury. Today, more than 500 hours of video appear on the platform every minute — from home vlogs and podcasts to billions of clips, streams, documentaries, shorts, and even videos created by AI.

To celebrate the anniversary, YouTube decorated "Me at the zoo" with a virtual cake slider and an elephant icon leading to Karim's channel, which still has only one video but over 5.3 million subscribers. In February, the author updated the description to draw attention to the problem of microplastics.

Over the past 20 years, the service has grown far beyond video hosting. YouTube Music, Kids, TV, and Premium were introduced, and the quality of broadcasts has increased from 360p to 4K, 8K, HDR, and video for VR headsets. Despite criticisms of aggressive advertising, the platform remains one of the most influential in the history of the Internet and sets trends, in particular due to the popularity of short videos.

Interestingly, the first video on YouTube was actually a Shorts before the format was officially introduced on the platform.

As a reminder, YouTube Shorts has several new tools for editing short videos. The new features came amid the situation around TikTok.

We also wrote that YouTube is testing the new method of improving the accuracy of "Limited or no ads" ratings for video creators. The platform will send such videos for additional verification on its own.