YouTube at 20: From ‘Lazy Sunday’ to ‘Hot Ones’ – The New York Times

Technology|YouTube at 20: From ‘Lazy Sunday’ to ‘Hot Ones’https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/23/technology/youtube-20th-anniversary-timeline.htmlAdvertisementSKIP ADVERTISEMENTYou have a preview view of this article while we are checking your access. When we have confirmed access, the full article content will load.The video-streaming platform has revolutionized how we watch things. Here’s a timeline of its biggest moments.VideoFor every YouTube video you have watched, there are hundreds of millions you will never see.CreditCredit…April 23, 2025, 12:31 p.m. ETThe video is short — just 19 seconds — and not particularly compelling. A viewer would be forgiven for clicking away before it ends.The grainy footage, uploaded on April 23, 2005, of a man standing in front of the elephant enclosure at the San Diego Zoo — “All right, so here we are in front of the elephants” — does not look like the sort of thing that would touch off a video revolution.And yet, two decades after that inauspicious start, YouTube is now a cornerstone of the media ecosystem. It’s where people go for music videos and four-hour-long hotel reviews. It is a platform for rising stars and conspiracy theorists. It’s a repository for vintage commercials and 10 hours of ambient noise. It has disrupted traditional television and given rise to
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