Blow out the candles! YouTube has been pumping out movies for 20 years — and to present you one thought of how huge the Google-owned platform has turn out to be, YouTube says greater than 20 trillion movies have been uploaded up to now.
Wednesday (April 23) marks the twentieth anniversary of the the primary video shared on YouTube: “Me at the Zoo,” a 19-second clip that co-founder Jawed Karim shot in entrance of the elephant exhibit on the San Diego Zoo.
To mark its twentieth birthday, YouTube shared some new statistics, introduced some forthcoming options and is planting some celebratory Easter eggs.
In addition to the staggering 20 trillion-plus movies uploaded over 20 years, YouTube says that on common, there are over 20 million movies uploaded day by day to YouTube (as of March 2025). In 2024, YouTube customers averaged over 100 million feedback on movies every day — and creators “hearted” feedback from a median of 10 million viewers per day. Last 12 months, YouTube movies on common acquired over 3.5 billion likes from customers per day. (In 2021, YouTube began hiding thumbs-down “dislikes” on movies.)
In addition, up to now, greater than 300 music movies on YouTube have greater than 1 billion views — a bunch that it has dubbed the Billion Views Club. The 5 music movies which have hit the milestone the quickest are: Adele’s “Hello” (88 days); Ed Sheeran’s “Shape of You” and Luis Fonsi’s “Despacito ft. Daddy Yankee” (tied at 97 days); J Balvin & Willy William’s “Mi Gente” (103 days); and Rosé & Bruno Mars’ “APT.” (105 days).
YouTube introduced a number of new upcoming options:
- In the “next few weeks,” YouTube TV subscribers will be capable to construct their very own multiview with choose non-sports content material, beginning with a small group of standard channels and increasing within the coming months.
- YouTube will roll out the flexibility for extra creators to “voice-reply” to feedback on their movies later this 12 months, after trialing the function to a small group of creators in 2024.
- YouTube’s Ask Music function creates a personalised radio station primarily based on an outline of the kind of music you’re within the temper for (out there on iOS and Android for all YouTube Premium and YouTube Music customers).
- 4x playback velocity is rolling out for YouTube Premium subscribes on cell units (alongside 2.05x, 2.5x, 3x playback).
- This summer season, YouTube is planning to launch a brand new TV viewing expertise, promising simpler navigation, playback, high quality tweaks, and streamlined entry to feedback, channel information, and subscribing.
YouTube has just a few Easter eggs marking the twentieth birthday, too.
It’s launching a celebratory Yoodle, a particular model of the YouTube brand (it’s YouTube’s model of a Google Doodle) — and if you click on on it, you’ll get “rick-rolled” with a customized mash-up of Rick Astley’s “Never Gonna Give You Up” (which is within the Billion Views Club).
On just a few choose movies on Wednesday, together with “Me at the Zoo” and the “Never Gonna Give You Up” birthday clip, there’s a particular birthday-themed video standing bar (aka the “scrubber”); when you just like the movies, a “20” animation pops up over the button. And for desktop YouTube customers, when you kind “bday” whereas on a watch web page you will notice a delicate blast from the previous: The video participant’s controls will revert again to an older design.
YouTube is also introducing a brand new restricted YouTube twentieth anniversary brand:
YouTube shared the backstory of the unique brand: In 2005, co-founder Chad Hurley was en path to the workplace and got here up with the concept — impressed by the brand for the CalTrain, a commuter line in Silicon Valley, and the TV Guide design.
Today, YouTube is bigger and extra highly effective than every other participant in Hollywood and is positioned to construct on that lead, in accordance with MoffettNathanson analyst Michael Nathanson, who lately dubbed YouTube the “new king of all media.”
For the total 12 months 2024, YouTube was the second-largest media firm by income at $54.2 billion, trailing solely Disney, in accordance with Nathanson. In 2025, YouTube is poised to take the highest spot, forward of Disney (excluding income in Disney’s theme parks and product phase), “making it not only the leader in engagement but revenue as well,” Nathanson wrote in a current analysis word. If YouTube had been a standalone enterprise, it might be price $475 billion to $550 billion, or about 30% of Alphabet’s present valuation, the analysts estimated.
YouTube now ranks as the biggest combination TV content material supply within the U.S. in accordance with Nielsen (primarily based on viewing time), surpassing conventional TV giants like Disney, Paramount Global, Warner Bros. Discovery and NBCUniversal, in addition to subscription-streaming chief Netflix.