Almost everyone who has ever used the Internet knows YouTube. The meteoric rise of the video platform began exactly 15 years ago with a clip that was only a few seconds short. YouTube co-founder Jawed Karim (40) , who was born in Merseburg, Germany, published the video on April 23, 2005 under the title “Me at the zoo” (in German: “Ich, im Zoo”).
The most important YouTube clip in the history of the platform does not have much to offer in terms of content. In the 18-second section, Karim stands in front of the elephant enclosure in the San Diego Zoo and says: “The cool thing about these guys is that they have very, very, very long proboscis. There is really nothing more to say. ”
In the past 15 years, Karim’s “Me at the zoo” has garnered more than 90 million views and around 790,000 followers with the video. So far it is the only clip that has been uploaded under the “jawed” profile. That may be a lot, but in international comparison these numbers are nothing unusual.
YouTube stars like PewDiePie (Felix Kjellberg, 30, “This Book Loves You”) usually get millions of clicks with their videos within a few days or even hours. Music videos are particularly popular. The currently most viewed clip comes from Luis Fonsi (42) and Daddy Yankee (43). The video for the summer hit “Despacito” , which was already released in January 2017, has now more than 6.7 billion views. So it will probably not be long before the entire world population has seen the music video – at least on paper.
