Residents, can you believe that YouTube is officially 20 years old today! The platform that gave rise to many of our favourite UK stars including Chunkz, Niko, Patricia Bright and Zeze Millz has been the foundation for many businesses and success stories over the years.

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YouTube was founded on February 14th 2005 by three friends and former employees of the online payment system, PayPal: Steve Chen, Chad Hurley and Jawed Karim. The co-founders had originally intended for YouTube to be a dating website with the slogan "Tune In, Hook Up." However, after having limited success in that endeavour - co-founder Jawed Karim released the first ever video to YouTube entitled “Me at The Zoo” in April 2006. The video which has now amassed nearly 350 million views, featured Karim at the San Diego Zoo and in many ways marked the inception of modern day vlogging and short-form video sharing.

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In a time when entertainment was almost entirely televised and heavily monetised and controlled, YouTube offered free uncensored access to some of the cultures most notable moments. YouTube also allowed almost any man, woman and child to become the stars of their own reality shows, which gave rise to the career of one of the country’s most successful black vloggers Patricia Bright. Today, YouTube boasts over 2.5 billion users each month who watch roughly 5 billion videos a day! 

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Since its inception Youtube has birthed viral moments one after the other and redefined what constitutes a viral video by continuously attracting a ground-breaking number of views! Among the most viewed YouTube videos is the “Shape of You” music video, by another homegrown talent Ed Sheeran, which gained a whopping 6 billion views. 

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But no demographic has yielded more of an impact than the children who flock to YouTube, launching creators such as Ms Rachel, Ryan’s World and Kai Cenat to new heights and turning Mr Beast into one of the planets richest people. It’s estimated that over 80% of children aged 12-15 consume YouTube regularly and children no more than one second new are exposed to YouTube music and more. The most viral video to date, remains “Baby Shark”, with more than 15 billion views, I doubt any UK household was able to avoid the tune which became the theme song for 2015-16. 

What has been your favourite moment in YouTube history and who’s ‘YouTube to riches’ story have you enjoyed watching the most? 

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