Celebrating 10 Years of YouTube

On April 23, 2005, history was made. An 18-second clip about how cool elephants are was shot at the San Diego Zoo and uploaded to a then-private video sharing site called YouTube.

That May, YouTube launched in beta before becoming available to the wider public six months later. Ten years have now passed, and that site has grown to become not just the biggest video platform on the web—a community of more than one billion people, where hundreds of millions of hours of video are watched and billions of views are generated every day —but one of the largest and most diverse collections of self-expression in history.

YouTube is a portrait of our global culture, seen through the lenses and perspectives of people around the world. It is a portrait built by a creative community of bold and fearless individuals. Built by comedians, gamers, activists, artists, performers, teachers, and pranksters. Built with cats and rainbows and blenders and ninjas and unicorns. It was built on the silly. It was built on the profound. It was built by you.

And 10 years in, you continue to redefine how the world experiences music, entertainment, and news. How the world laughs and how the world learns. How we shape political events and how we connect over the things we love.

You’ve helped turn creators into the biggest names in entertainment. You’ve given people opportunities to share their voice and talent no matter where they are from or what their age or point of view. You built a world where little ideas can bring about amazing things and where amazing things can bring little delights to each of us.

So in honor of our 10th birthday, we’re celebrating you, our YouTube community. Every day over the next 26 days, we’ll take a look back at some of the most memorable moments, from the silly to the profound, that you’ve shared on YouTube in the last 10 years. It’s YouTube from A to Z. Literally.

You can follow our celebration throughout the month of May on our YouTube Trends blog.