Youtuber, ElRubius, the Nyan Cat, Mr Beast, PewDiePie, Baby Shark, LoFi Girl, ASMR … the last two decades of popular culture would not be the same without the existence of YouTube, the social network that forever changed the way we see the world. However, the history of YouTube is full of curiosities that you surely do not know and will leave you astonished. Do you want to check som facts about YouTube out? Let us go!
As we explained in our history of social networks, YouTube was created in 2005 by three former PayPal employees: Chad Hurley, Steve Chen, and Jawed Karim. Remember this name well, as it will appear more times in this article 😉
The name “YouTube” is derived from two words: “You” and “Tube.” The term “tube” has historically been used colloquially to refer to television, so YouTube could be translated as something like… TeleYou
The initial headquarters of YouTube was above a pizzeria and a Japanese restaurant in San Mateo, California, just 17 kilometers in a straight line from the place where, eight years earlier, Sergey Brin and Larry Page had created Google, as we mentioned in the article on the history of Google.
In reality, the founders’ idea was not to create a video social network as we know it now, but rather… a dating portal based on video profiles. In fact, Karim himself confessed that YouTube’s first slogan was: Tune in, Hook up, which means “Tune in and connect”… although in reality “hook up” could also be translated as “get together with someone,” so…
As a dating site, YouTube did not work well at all and had barely any videos, so they made two decisions:
Jawed Karim published the first official video in YouTube’s history. It is titled “Me at the zoo” and was uploaded by the YouTube co-founder on April 23, 2005. The video features a very young Karim at a zoo in San Diego, in front of the elephant enclosure, commenting on how long their trunks are.
Literally, he thought that was “cool.”
As if by magic, YouTube began to gain users who commented and uploaded videos. The founders decided to change their slogan to “Your Digital Video Repository” (your digital video repository). Later it became “broadcast yourself” (broadcast yourself)
Between 2005 and 2006 YouTube received almost $13.2 million USD from various investors who saw its enormous potential. This allowed them to continue growing.
Its growth in 2006 was tremendous: in March, 25,000 new videos were uploaded every day, but by summer, it was 60,000. In July, it surpassed 100 million videos viewed each day.
That same year, YouTube showed the first advertisement in its history: an ad by Fox offering the possibility to view exclusive content from Prison Break by clicking on it. This ad, mind you, only appeared in videos on the official channel of… Paris Hilton
In view of this scenario, Google could not resist and in October of that year announced the acquisition of YouTube for 1.815 billion dollars
Since then, YouTube accelerated its growth even further. Currently, the social network is available in over 100 countries and more than 80 languages, making it a truly global platform.
Currently, YouTube has more than 2.500 million active monthly users, placing it second in the ranking of the social networks with the most users worldwide.
Every minute, more than 500 hours of video are uploaded to YouTube. This is equivalent to approximately 30,000 hours of new content each hour.
The most viewed video in YouTube’s history is Baby Shark, with over 16.5 billion views. Okay, do you realize what this figure represents? It is more than twice the world’s population. Baby Shark far exceeds the second-ranked video, Despacito, which has more than 9.35 billion views.
The YouTube channel with the most subscribers is that of the American YouTuber Mr Beast, with more than 385 million subscribers. In second place is T-Series, an entertainment channel from India, with more than 290 million subscribers.
The most-followed Spanish-language channel is the Argentine channel El Reino Infantil, with more than 67 million subscribers, ahead of Yolo Aventuras, the channel of a group of YouTubers led by Yolo. Other popular Spanish-language creators include Germán Garmendia and other widely recognized channels like Badabun.
In Spain, the YouTuber with the most followers is Mikecrack, with over 50 million, ahead of El Rubius and Vegetta 777. For many years Rubén Doblas, also known as El Rubius, led this ranking, but after his move to Twitch and the great popularity achieved by Mikecrack, in 2023 this shift occurred in the rankings.
Specifically, the country with the most YouTube users is India, with 491 million, ahead of the United States (253) and Brazil (144).
The most searched term on YouTube in the past year is…. ASMR, ahead of MrBeast and the group of YouTubers Sidemen.
Image: Depositphotos
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