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The oldest YouTube video officially recognized by the platform is “Me at the zoo”, uploaded by YouTube co-founder Jawed Karim on April 23, 2005. The roughly 18–19-second clip shows Karim at the San Diego Zoo talking about elephants and their long trunks. The original video is still publicly available.
What happens in “Me at the zoo”?
Karim stands near an elephant exhibit at the San Diego Zoo in California and briefly comments on the elephants’ trunks. There is no elaborate setup: it is a short, ordinary clip, notable chiefly because it became YouTube’s first officially recognized upload.
The video was uploaded to Karim’s account, Jawed. Secondary reporting identifies his friend Yakov Lapitsky as the person who filmed it; that detail is not established by the video page itself. YouTube describes the clip as about 19 seconds long, while other descriptions and the player’s duration put it closer to 18 seconds, so “about 18–19 seconds” is the safest description.
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When was the first YouTube video uploaded?
YouTube gives the upload date as April 23, 2005. Its anniversary history identifies “Me at the zoo” as the platform’s first video, and the original watch page displays the same date.
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Some API-based or third-party listings show April 24. One technical listing, for example, gives a timestamp of 2005-04-24T03:31:52Z. That is a UTC timestamp, which can fall on the following calendar date, rather than evidence of a separate upload or a different first video. YouTube’s stated date is April 23.
Is the oldest YouTube video still online?
Yes. The original upload remains accessible at its YouTube watch page. View counts, likes, comments, and other page statistics change over time, so they are not useful as timeless details of the video’s history.
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Was it definitely the first video uploaded to YouTube?
It is the first upload YouTube officially identifies. The company has repeated that account in its 10th-anniversary history and later commemorative material, including a 2026 announcement about preserving the video.
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There is a limit to what the public record can prove: viewers cannot inspect every private, deleted, internal, or test upload from YouTube’s early development. So the careful answer is that “Me at the zoo” is YouTube’s officially recognized first upload and the earliest well-known first upload that remains publicly viewable—not that no video file could possibly have existed earlier in a private or test environment.
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Claims of an older public video also need scrutiny. A video called “Welcome to YouTube!!!” was reported with an earlier date, but reporting on the case pointed to signs that the date came from a later Premiere rather than an original 2005 upload. A displayed date alone does not establish when a video was first uploaded.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.What other videos appeared near the beginning?
“Me at the zoo” was not necessarily the only upload made on April 23, 2005. A secondary compilation of known early videos also lists “My Snowboarding Skillz” on that date, followed by “Tribute” on April 24, “Premature Baldness” on April 28, and “Carrie Rides a Truck” on April 30.
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These are commonly cited early surviving uploads, not a complete official YouTube archive or an independently verified ranking of every upload. Their dates do not change YouTube’s identification of “Me at the zoo” as its first video.
Why was the clip uploaded before YouTube’s public launch?
YouTube’s website was registered on February 14, 2005, and its public launch followed in May. Karim uploaded the clip on April 23, between those milestones. YouTube’s account of its early history describes the video as embodying the idea that anyone could turn on a camera and share a video online.
It is reasonable to see the upload as an early demonstration of that premise, but the public record cited here does not establish Karim’s precise private motive. Its lasting significance is less about what it shows than what it marks: the beginning of YouTube’s documented public video history.
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