It’s only 19 seconds long, but it helped change the internet forever.
Before creators had millions of subscribers and viral trends took over the platform, there was just a guy standing in front of an elephant. Now that moment is being preserved in a museum.
YouTube’s First Upload Goes On Display In London
The very first upload on YouTube is now being shown at the Victoria & Albert Museum in London. Originally uploaded on April 23, 2005, the video features YouTube co-founder Jawed Karim standing in front of an elephant at the San Diego Zoo in a clip titled “Me at the zoo.”
For the exhibition, the V&A partnered with YouTube to recreate the platform’s original 2006 layout, allowing visitors to experience the early watch page as it once appeared. YouTube’s chief executive Neal Mohan commented:
"By reconstructing the original 2005 watchpage, we aren't just showing a video; we are inviting the public to step back in time to the beginning of a global, cultural phenomenon."
Since its upload, the clip has amassed an impressive 382 million views.
From Humble Upload To Global Platform
What makes this clip worthy of a museum is not the impressive number of views, but the fact that it marks the beginning of YouTube, a platform that would go on to change the internet forever. While its beginnings were humble, YouTube has since become one of the most influential social media platforms on the planet. Not only that, its creators now make millions from their content.
Back in 2006, a simple video in front of an elephant was considered a highlight. Today, we are flooded with content. A trip to the zoo is no longer extraordinary. Instead, you can watch a streamer surviving seven days on a lonely island or something even more extreme, and that is just content from last week.
Millions of creators now upload videos every single day on almost every imaginable topic. Whether it is survival challenges, global news, or something as specific as Baldur’s Gate 3 build guides to keep a playthrough fresh, YouTube has become part of everyday life for millions of people.
So even if “Me at the zoo” would not stand out by today’s standards, it marked the beginning of a platform that continues to shape how we consume media around the world.
