Human Interest First-Ever YouTube Video Published 19 Years Ago — and It Was All About a Trip to the Zoo! The 19-second clip was uploaded by YouTube co-founder Jawed Karim on April 23, 2005 By Bailey Richards Bailey Richards Bailey Richards is a writer-reporter at PEOPLE. She has been working at PEOPLE since 2023 and interned with the brand in 2022. Her work has previously appeared in digital publications like Paper Magazine and TV Insider. People Editorial Guidelines Published on April 24, 2024 12:54PM EDT Close Jawed Karim. Photo: Jawed/YouTube Almost two decades ago, a grainy, 19-second clip became the very first YouTube video. What the video lacks in length and quality, it makes up for in charm — the same charm that helped the video-sharing platform evolve into the social media powerhouse it is today. Now separated into three sections, “Intro,” “The cool thing,” and “End,” the brief clip was uploaded on Apr 23, 2005, by YouTube co-founder and software engineer Jawed Karim, who was 25 at the time. BTS Break YouTube Premiere Record as They Drop 'Real Summer Song' Earworm 'Butter' As its title, “Me at the zoo,” implies, the video shows Karim, now 44, at a zoo. Specifically, it shows him standing in front of several elephants at the San Diego Zoo. “All right, so here we are, in front of the elephants,” the YouTube co-founder begins the video. “The cool thing about these guys is that they have really, really, really long trunks. And that's cool.” And, after briefly looking back at the elephant enclosure, Karim finishes, “And that's pretty much all there is to say.” Uploaded a month before YouTube became available to the public in May 2025, “Me at the zoo” now has over 317 million views, and 16 million likes. Jawed Karim. 'Baby Shark' Becomes First Video in History to Reach 10 Billion Views on YouTube At the time, YouTube saw about 30,000 visitors per day, according to Encyclopædia Britannica. By the time the platform launched in an official capacity on Dec. 15, 2005, it was attracting over two million video views daily. Co-founders Karim, Steve Chen and Chad Hurley — all of whom were also early employees of PayPal — eventually sold YouTube to Google for $1.65 billion in November 2006, per Encyclopædia Britannica. According to the New York Times, Karim didn't ever “take a salary, benefits or even a formal title” while launching YouTube. Instead, he went to Stanford to receive a master’s degree in computer science, with the ultimate goal of becoming a professor. Never miss a story — sign up for PEOPLE's free daily newsletter to stay up-to-date on the best of what PEOPLE has to offer, from celebrity news to compelling human interest stories. Currently, the most-watched videos on YouTube — as of January 2024 — are not zoo clips, but rather music videos and catchy nursery tunes, with No. 1 being “Baby Shark Dance,” per Forbes India. The iconic earworm currently has over 14 billion views. Second on the list is Luis Fonsi and Daddy Yankee’s “Despacito,” with over eight billion views, followed by “Johny Johny Yes Papa,” “Bath Song” and Ed Sheeran’s “Shape of You,” all of which have over six billion views each.