YouTube is setting the document straight: “Me on the zoo” continues to be the oldest YouTube video.
“Me on the zoo,” uploaded on April twenty third, 2005 and that includes YouTube co-founder Jawed Karim standing in entrance of elephants on the San Diego Zoo, is a vital piece of web historical past, because it marks the oldest video on one of the influential video providers on the planet. However earlier on Thursday, a video began circulating that, one way or the other, had an excellent earlier add date: April fifth, 2005.
Titled “Welcome to YouTube!!!”, the 48-second video undoubtedly seems like one thing that might have been used to check out a mid-aughts video web site. The video has only one picture: a low-res graphic with a YouTube brand with the textual content “Welcome to YouTube!!!!” that’s attributed to Chad, Steve, and Jawed, a probable reference to co-founders Chad Hurley, Steve Chen, and Jawed Karim. The video is backed by Van Halen’s iconic tune “Leap.”
However for those who watch the (now unlisted) video on YouTube’s web site, you’ll in all probability spot some suspicious pink flags. You would possibly discover, for instance, the “Reside chat is disabled for this Premiere” discover beneath the video. Premieres let folks pre-schedule movies to play at a sure time with options like stay chat, they usually undoubtedly weren’t a factor on 2005 YouTube. You may additionally spot that the video was uploaded by a mysterious account named enn who joined YouTube in September 2005, which is months after this supposed earliest video was posted to the location. The account claims that the be a part of date was “reset throughout a database replace.”
Whereas I used to be writing this text, the outline mentioned that the video “premiered” on April fifth; for a video this outdated, there usually wouldn’t be a “premiered” descriptor forward of the date. (The outline additionally factors to a Discord server that’s stuffed with sketchy-seeming hyperlinks and posts with derogatory slurs, and I strongly suggest in opposition to visiting it.) However shortly earlier than publishing, the video reverted to premiering 23 hours in the past.
In an announcement to The Verge, YouTube spokesperson Kimberly Taylor mentioned that “we’re conscious of a problem that allowed the add date of this video to be modified, and are engaged on a repair. Relaxation assured, the oldest video on YouTube will all the time be ‘Me on the zoo’ which was uploaded on April 23, 2005 by certainly one of our co-founders and helped kickstart greater than 17 years of creativity on YouTube.”
We tried contacting the uploader on Discord for remark, however they aren’t accepting good friend requests or DMs from individuals who aren’t already their good friend.
