Happy Birthday to You(Tube)

Kaylee Vasbinder, Content Editor

Speculation about YouTube’s actual birthday occurs around this time every April. While according to the New York Times, YouTube’s domain was registered Feb. 14, 2005, the first video ever uploaded to the site was on April 23, 2005. In this video one of the three founders of the site is at the zoo.

“The cool thing about these guys is that they have really, really long trunks,” Co-Founder Jawed Karim said. “And that’s pretty much all there is to say.”

Karim said this in the video featuring elephants in the background. It uploaded on YouTube exactly 10 years ago today. The 19 second film is called “Me at the Zoo” and gained millions of views.

The website started with just three paypal employees: Chad Hurley, Steven Chen and Karim. Their goal was to give people an easier way to access videos, with an $11.5 million investment by Sequoia Capital by the end of 2005. The original YouTube headquarters was above a pizzeria and Japanese restaurant in San Mateo, California.

Today, with more than one billion users, about 300 hours of video content is uploaded to YouTube every minute. As of March 2015, it is the third most popular website of all time according to both Alexa Traffic Rank and SimilarWeb internet traffic websites.

The 10th birthday celebration will be in New York City on April 29 and feature YouTubers such as Lilly Singh, Dude Perfect, The Slow Mo Guys and Michigan native, Tyler Oakley.


Tweet advertising the birthday bash.

This celebration will kick off the month long celebration the website has in store.