From “me at the zoo” to Gangnam Style and Baby Shark: the 20-year evolution of YouTube
Back on 23 April 2005, YouTube co-founder Jawed Karim (born Germany, now USA) took a 19-second long video of him talking about elephants, and uploaded the clip to the new platform with the caption “me at the zoo”.
Now, over 20 years later, that very video has over 376 million views, a Guinness World Records title for the first video uploaded to YouTube, and a legendary status as the first clip that started the company’s brand as the ultimate video-sharing platform.
Thanks to the app, which boasts of 2.6 billion active viewers, a number of record holders found fame by uploading clips of themselves taking on new and unexpected challenges.
Keep reading to see us explore some of our favourites!
Most viewed video / most viewed music video on YouTube
You know it. You’ve heard it. And depending on whether or not you have kids… you either love it or hate it.
That’s right, folks, it’s Baby Shark (doo-doo-doo-doo-doo-doo).
This dominating ear-worm holds the record for the most viewed music video on YouTube AND the most viewed video on YouTube with over 16 billion streams (as of 26 November).
Surpassing hit songs like “Despacito” by Luis Fonsi and Daddy Yankee (both Puerto Rico) or “Gangnam Style” by PSY (aka Park Jae-sang, South Korea), the song became popular with children and their caregivers, and recently made the company PinkFong millions of dollars in its trade debut.
Most followed person on YouTube
Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you’ve probably heard of MrBeast (USA) – and if you haven’t, he might pay a bodybuilder a million dollars to lift that rock off of you.
YouTuber, social media sensation, and GWR ICON MrBeast has the most subscribers for an individual male on YouTube of all time, with 452 million subscribers (as of 26 November) on his YouTube page alone.
Known for his creative and ambitious challenges like hosting Squid Game in real life, or racing the fastest car in the world against a cheetah, the "Willy Wonka of YouTube" has other notable records for the most subscribed YouTube channels (269 million as of June 2024) and the first person to reach 1 million followers on Threads (as of 6 July 2023).
Not to mention the fact that his Beast Games broke 44 records during filming of its first season!
And on that note, the most subscribers for an individual female on YouTube is 132 million, achieved by Diana Kydysiuk (USA, b. Ukraine) with the channel "Kids Diana Show" as of 24 March 2025.
With stories from Diana and Roma, the kids channel features educational videos and skits designed for – and by – children.
Minecraft – smashing blocks and breaking records
And how could we forget the iconic content from the most popular videogame on YouTube, Minecraft?
As of 14 October 2020, fans, streamers and reviewers have uploaded 1,913,742 Minecraft videos since the game's release in 2009, and these videos have been watched a cumulative 366,854,694,616 times.
Perhaps the most famous of all was “Revenge – A Minecraft Original Music Video” by Jordan “CaptainSparklez” Maron (USA), which was the most watched Minecraft YouTube video of all time in 2016, and currently has 304 million views.
Read more stories about record-breaking gamers in our Gaming section!
Unsurprisingly, then, many popular YouTubers also got their start making videos about Minecraft.
Gamer Callum Knight (UK) won the record in 2017 for the fastest time to build a house in Minecraft in survival mode with three minutes and 54 seconds (later surpassed by Christopher Rüsch in three minutes and 24 seconds), and he currently has 670,000 YouTube subscribers, while the highest-earning Minecraft contributor to YouTube in 2015 was estimated to be "PopularMMOs", with annual earnings of $750,900 to $12 million. The latter creator currently has 17.5 million subscribers, and he still makes content today.
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