20 years of "Me at the zoo" - a journey back in time to the beginnings of YouTube

David Lee

24.4.2025

Translation: machine translated

The first video was published on YouTube 20 years ago. It is still online. I tried to copy it.

On 24 April 2005 - 20 years ago today - visitors to the youtube.com website were able to watch the first video. It was recorded by Jawed Karim, one of the three founders of YouTube.

The video is still online today. It is 19 seconds long. Jawed stands in front of elephants and says that he is standing in front of elephants. The cool thing is that they have such long, um, trunks, that's cool, and that's all there is to say. I don't know whether this was a late adolescent joke or pure helplessness, but it seems charming.

When I look at YouTube today, I think it's great how it has developed, but also annoying how it has been commercialised. I mourn the innocent times when many people actually believed that YouTube was Google's gift to humanity.

To mark the anniversary, I am therefore trying to recreate the first YouTube video at Zurich Zoo.

Not so easy

Of course, the video has to be filmed with an old camera. One that films at 240p, like Jawed's original. The camera and retro nerd in me won't allow anything else.

So I pack two «potatoes» from my potato collection: The Canon PowerShot G1 and the Nikon Coolpix L3.

The old cameras are bitchy and cumbersome. Especially the Canon G1 from the year 2000, where there is no indication whether the recording is running or not, it often stops in the middle, and after three takes the memory card is full, after four the battery is empty.

But as it soon turns out, the old technology is the least of the problems. The bigger problem is that I've chosen a bad day: far too many visitors at the zoo. It's the school holidays, the sun is shining and a baby elephant was born three days ago. There is nowhere with a clear view of the big animals. And: even in the least interesting place in the whole zoo, a crowd forms as soon as I set up my tripod.

The second reason is a positive one: today, animals are no longer simply exhibited in small enclosures, but can move around relatively freely. And with large crowds, they have the opportunity to retreat. Which they do on this day.

In order to still get something in the box, the only thing left for me to do is escape into parody.

Retro video production

Finally, I film a few animals without myself. That's much easier. But it's impersonal. If Jawed hadn't filmed himself, but only the elephants, the video would probably be of no interest to anyone today.

Nevertheless, here is Zurich Zoo in the year 2025, with the video quality of 2005, edited on a PC called «digitec Tharsis», which also dates from the noughties. If you're going retro, then do it properly. A separate article on the Digitec PC will follow.

PS. I haven't seen the baby elephant anywhere.

PPS. Still not enough YouTube nostalgia? Then take a look at Flo's retrospective on the most memorable Swiss YouTube videos.

David Lee

Senior Editor

David.Lee@digitecgalaxus.ch

My interest in IT and writing landed me in tech journalism early on (2000). I want to know how we can use technology without being used. Outside of the office, I’m a keen musician who makes up for lacking talent with excessive enthusiasm.

These articles might also interest you