It’s hard to believe that Youtube didn’t exist just five years ago. I mean, how did we entertain ourselves all the way back in 2004? By Googling our own names? I can’t actually remember back that far, so let’s just be glad that three former PayPal employees battled the likes of Veoh and Vimeo in the mid 2000’s to emerge as the most popular video sharing website on the internet. So popular in fact, that, much like Google and later still Facebook, Youtube transformed from a techy sounding proper noun into a Mother-friendly verb by sheer ubiquity and cultural relevance. By mid 2006 the site averaged 100 million views per day, prompting Google to acquire it for a staggering $1.65 billion. Today, Youtube receives over 2 billion views per day and is the best destination to watch Karl Stefanovic’s drunken post-Logies LOL-fest.
To celebrate this half decade of existence Youtube have unveiled the FiveYear Channel and the “My YouTube Story” initiative in which users are invited to upload vlogs explaining what Youtube means to them and the myriad ways it has affected their lives. Aww, technology! They’ve also released a video outlining Youtube’s short history (below) and wrangled a few pop culture icons to share their favourite videos of the last five years including Conan O’Brien and Spanish auteur Pedro Almodovar.
So Happy Birthday Youtube and thanks for collecting all the funny videos of people hurting themselves and the cute animals and the unintentionally hilarious haters and the informative “how to” videos and the movie trailers and the music videos (so I can stream songs that I want to show people but couldn’t find anywhere else). I don’t know how I could live life without you and I’ve watched that Greyson Chance guy cover Lady Gaga like twelve times today.
FIVE YEARS OF YOUTUBE
CONAN O’BRIEN
PEDRO ALMODOVAR
