YouTube
It's from 2005, before you were born.
- Maker
- Chad Hurley, Steve Chen, Jawed Karim
- Type
- Video-sharing platform
- Debuted
- 2005
- Note
- First video: a guy at the zoo
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About
As of 2026, it's 21 years old.
YouTube was founded in 2005 by three former PayPal employees, and its very first upload was an 18-second clip of co-founder Jawed Karim standing in front of elephants saying they have 'really, really, really long trunks.' Cinema was never the same.
Google bought it the next year for $1.65 billion, and the world responded by uploading everything: cat videos, music, tutorials, breakdowns, and roughly nine hours of footage every second. An entire career path — 'YouTuber' — was born.
YouTube is the world's TV station, film school, jukebox, and rabbit hole all at once, where you came to watch one thing and emerged four hours later an expert on something you'll never use.
