If you want to watch a video, the chances are you go to YouTube. After all, it hosts movies, trailers, live streams, vlogs, music videos, news, and much more besides. YouTube is synonymous with video watching and sharing and pulls in billions of revenue every year for its parent company, Google.

But how did YouTube start? And what was the first YouTube video its three creators uploaded to the platform?

When Did YouTube Start?

YouTube was founded by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim on February 14, 2005. The trio met while working at PayPal, a company which found success after being bought by eBay.

Supposedly, the idea for YouTube as a video sharing service came from the Super Bowl controversy when Janet Jackson's breast was exposed, and Karim couldn't find the clip online.

According to Hurley and Chen, the original concept of YouTube was as an online dating service. They took to Craigslist to ask women to upload videos of themselves to YouTube in exchange for $100 each. They struggled to get enough videos, so pivoted YouTube to accept any and all types of videos.

In May 2005, the site launched in a public beta. By November, a Nike advert starring Ronaldinho became the first to claim one million views. In December 2005, the site officially launched, at which point it had eight million daily views. By July 2006, more than 65,000 videos were being uploaded every day.

YouTube wasn't the first video sharing website (Vimeo launched in November 2004), but it was certainly the first to popularize easy uploading and sharing. Its popularity was boosted through viral comedy videos, like that from homegrown talent Smosh and unauthorized uploads of Saturday Night Live's The Lonely Island.

In November 2006, Google acquired YouTube for $1.65 billion in YouTube stock. From there, YouTube has changed rapidly: multiple new interfaces, support for higher resolution videos, changes in management, pushing monetization, and more.

That said, in some ways the YouTube of today is much like the one of 2005. The core structure remains unchanged. Anyone can upload videos to their channel, comment on other videos, and share them with friends.

What Was the First YouTube Video?

The first YouTube video is "Me at the zoo" and was uploaded on April 23, 2005 by co-founder Jared Karim when he was 25 years old. The video runs for less than 20 seconds and features Karim in front of some elephants at the San Diego Zoo, commenting on how cool their long trunks are.

At the time of writing, the video has over 260 million views and remains the only video on Karim's YouTube channel.

"Me at the zoo" is nothing special—it's low resolution and states the obvious about elephants—but it set the tone for the homemade and inconsequential uploads that defined the early years of YouTube. It was a time when amateurs used the platform to express themselves, simply fueled by a desire to create and share, rather than brands or influencers seeking financial reward.

Karim has updated the video's description a couple of times over the years to call out Google. In November 2013, the description read "I can't comment here anymore, since I don't want a Google+ account," in response to YouTube's integration with Google+. Similarly, in November 2021, the description explained why YouTube hiding the dislike count is bad.

What's Next for YouTube?

Now, billions of people use YouTube every day, with no sign of that slowing down. Considering no video sharing platform has ever come close to touching YouTube's dominance, it's likely to stay that way for a long time.

However, other video sites continue to exist (Vimeo included!), of which some people consider to be superior to YouTube thanks to their relaxed content restrictions or focus on community.