YouTube turns 13

The first video on YouTube was uploaded 13 years ago by YouTube’s co-founder Jawed Karim. In the video he stands in front of two elephants, explaining that “they have really, really, really long… trunks. And that’s cool.” (He adds that that is “pretty much all there is to say,”. This video was shooted 13 years ago and it is an 18-second long clip which has managed to receive over 48 million views. The video was titled “Me at the zoo”.

From shooting those elephants to today YouTube has changed fully. It’s a place where people can share anything with the world and can even make living through it. Who would have thought at that time that YouTube would be so successful that everyone would use it for entertainment.YouTube has expanded its role to include everything from viral videos to a platform for influencers to screw up in front of the entire world.

YouTube was created by three former PayPal employees—Chad Hurley, Steve Chen, and Jawed Karim—in February 2005. Google bought the site in November 2006 for US$1.65 billion; YouTube now operates as one of Google’s subsidiaries.

Here’s the first video shared by Jawed Karim.