The first video was uploaded to YouTube
On this day · 23 April 2005
Nineteen grainy seconds in front of two elephants quietly opened the era of online video.
On April 23, 2005, YouTube co-founder Jawed Karim uploaded a 19-second clip titled “Me at the zoo.” It is the first video ever posted to the platform, filmed at the San Diego Zoo by a high-school friend.
The content is almost comically slight: Karim, standing before two elephants, observes that the most interesting thing about them is their “really, really, really long trunks.” There is no plot, no production, and certainly no premonition of what was coming.
“And that’s pretty much all there is to say.”
That throwaway sign-off launched a medium. YouTube was founded by Karim, Chad Hurley, and Steve Chen; within little more than a year Google bought it for $1.65 billion. The original upload has since gathered hundreds of millions of views, and in 2026 London’s Victoria and Albert Museum acquired the video and an early watch page as a landmark digital artifact — internet history, formally accessioned.
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