Twenty years ago this past week, YouTube co-founder Jawed Karim posted the very first YouTube video, titled "Me at the Zoo."
"All right. So here we are, in front of the elephants. The cool thing about these guys is that they have really, really, really long trunks. And that's cool. … And that's pretty much all there is to say."
YouTube was so new that our Charles Osgood had to define it for "Sunday Morning" viewers back in 2006: "A website that lets just about anyone post videos for the whole world to see."
Today, it doesn't need explaining. YouTube is the second most-visited website on Earth, after Google, which bought YouTube for $1.65 billion in 2006.
Every single day, we collectively watch more than a billion hours of YouTube videos. Funny videos … how-to videos … cat videos. In these first 20 years, we've uploaded 20 billion videos to YouTube.
The most-watched of all? "Baby Shark Dance," with about 16 billion views.
And people aren't just watching on their phones. "People watch YouTube more than they watch any other streaming service on their big screens in their living rooms now," said David Craig, who teaches media and culture at the University of Southern California at Annenberg.
Craig says that a key moment was the day YouTube started paying people for making videos. "YouTube came along and said, 'Why don't we give you some advertising revenue in exchange for the fact that you're helping us grow our service?'" he said.
Today, YouTube roughly splits the ad revenue with the creator, according to Craig: "It does probably change a little bit for some of the bigger-name players out there who they obviously need to make sure are very happy with the service."
Those bigger-name players include Rhett McLaughlin and Link Neal, creators of a daily show called "Good Mythical Morning." Thirty-four million subscribers have watched their shows 14 billion times.
McLaughlin described the show's appeal: "Two old friends hanging out, where you can be the third person in that friendship. We kind of stumbled upon this secret formula for having people come back every single day."
They may film in a traditional TV studio, but what is the difference between YouTube and TV? "I'd like to say our talent," Neal laughed.
"A big part of it is responding to the audience," said McLaughlin. "You've got comments, right? So, there's ways that you can connect with people online."
David Craig said, "Creators on YouTube, specifically, are not content creators. They are for-profit community organizers. They are using this platform to build online communities that they can build a dozen different business models off of."
For McLaughlin and Neal, those business models could include tours, books, sweatshirts, hoodies, magnets and pins. "And you can start to go bigger and sell hair products," said Neal. "If we're gonna spend as much time as we both spend on our hair, we are going to monetize it!"
Nobody's monetized it better than Jimmy Donaldson, better known as MrBeast, whose videos of colossal giveaways and physical challenges have made him the most-followed YouTuber of all, with 380 million fans.
Last year, Amazon Prime spent $100 million to produce a MrBeast game show.
I asked David Craig, "Is being a YouTube star now considered a greater ambition than becoming a television star?"
"I hate to tell you this, David, but that's been the case now for over 10 years," Craig replied. "They've been surveying young people, and they've all said they want to grow up to be a creator or an influencer more than a celebrity – or, I'm sorry to say, a journalist."
From the archives: The early days of YouTube
Rhett McLaughlin and Link Neal don't think that the advertising industry has quite caught up with YouTube's dominance. "If you look at the 18-to-34 age group, we outperform all of the other late-night shows combined," said Neal. "But if you look at revenue that's being spent on those shows versus our show, it's not quite there yet."
"And honestly, this is one of the reasons that we have really been interested in winning an Emmy," McLaughlin added. "You know, we're a part of the cultural conversation, as much as many shows that have won Emmys."
Over the last two decades, YouTube has had its controversies, from collecting personal information about kids, to claims that the site is fueling a mental health crisis.
YouTube's detractors also worry about the algorithm. It studies which videos seem to grab your attention, and feeds you more videos like them. YouTube has been accused of letting the algorithm lead people to extreme viewpoints.
- YouTube's struggle to police its channels
"We have this enormous diversity of opinions on our platform," said YouTube CEO Neal Mohan. "We don't allow adult content. We obviously don't allow spam and fraud. And we have policies to protect young people and kids on the platform. But it's fundamentally a platform for freedom of speech. "
So, with YouTube's 20th anniversary upon us, what are the next few years going to be like? According to Mohan, "One of the areas that I'm very excited about is artificial intelligence. You can tell YouTube when you're creating a video, 'Put us in Central Park, and change the background, and have these types of birds because it's a spring day.' And that magical technology exists today."
I asked, "Is there something about evolution or psychology that makes us so interested in watching other people?"
"I think it goes back to we, as human beings, are social beings," said Mohan. "We connect with other people. We are storytellers. That is what happens billions of times a day on YouTube. And it's back to our mission: give everyone a voice and show them the world."
"It's a double rainbow all the way!"
For more info:
- YouTube
- David Craig, Director of the Global Media and Communication program, University of Southern California, Annenberg, Los Angeles
- Good Mythical Morning
- MrBeast
Story produced by David Rothman. Editor: Jason Schmidt.
See also:
- How YouTube went from David to Goliath ("Sunday Morning")
Service List
