YouTube's First Video Turns 20, Hits Milestones

April 23, 2025, marks the 20th anniversary of 'Me at the zoo,' the first video uploaded to YouTube by co-founder Jawed Karim. The 18-19 second video, filmed at the San Diego Zoo, has garnered over 355 million views and is a significant piece of internet history. YouTube was founded by former PayPal employees Chad Hurley, Steve Chen, and Jawed Karim, and was acquired by Google in 2006 for $1.65 billion. The platform, initially conceived as a dating site, pivoted to fill a market gap in video sharing and has since become the world's second-most visited website. It now boasts nearly three billion monthly active users and over a billion hours of video watched daily. Over time, Karim has used the video's description to comment on platform policies and social issues.