What is the title of the first video ever uploaded to YouTube in 2005?
Answer
Me at the zoo
Answer
Me at the zoo
The first video ever uploaded to YouTube in 2005 is titled Me at the zoo. The 19-second clip shows Jawed Karim, one of YouTube's co-founders, standing in front of elephants at the San Diego Zoo and commenting briefly on their trunks.
Karim uploaded the video on April 23, 2005. His high-school friend Yakov Lapitsky recorded it, making the clip an informal snapshot rather than a polished launch advertisement. Its simplicity has become part of its historical importance: it captures the personal, user-generated character that helped define YouTube.
YouTube was founded in 2005 by Karim, Chad Hurley, and Steve Chen, all former PayPal employees. The platform's early purpose was to make online video easier to share. Me at the zoo is sometimes confused with other early viral clips such as Lazy Sunday or Charlie Bit My Finger, but those videos appeared later; they were not YouTube's first upload.
Source: Wikipedia · fact-checked Aug. 2026