Blow out the candles! YouTube has been pumping out videos for two decades — and to give you one idea of how massive the Google-owned platform has become, YouTube says more than 20 trillion videos have been uploaded to date.
Wednesday (April 23) marks the 20th anniversary of the the first video shared on YouTube: “Me at the Zoo,” a 19-second clip that co-founder Jawed Karim shot in front of the elephant exhibit at the San Diego Zoo.
To mark its 20th birthday, YouTube shared some new statistics, announced some forthcoming features and is planting some celebratory Easter eggs.
In addition to the staggering 20 trillion-plus videos uploaded over 20 years, YouTube says that on average, there are over 20 million videos uploaded daily to YouTube (as of March 2025). In 2024, YouTube users averaged over 100 million comments on videos on a daily basis — and creators “hearted” comments from an average of 10 million viewers per day. Last year, YouTube videos on average received over 3.5 billion likes from users per day. (In 2021, YouTube started hiding thumbs-down “dislikes” on videos.)
YouTube at 20: How the Video Colossus Launched the Creator Economy and Turned From Hollywood Foe to Friend
In addition, to date, more than 300 music videos on YouTube have more than 1 billion views — a group that it has dubbed the Billion Views Club. The five music videos that have hit the milestone the fastest 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 announced several new upcoming features:
- In the “next few weeks,” YouTube TV subscribers will be able to build their own multiview with select non-sports content, starting with a small group of popular channels and expanding in the coming months.
- YouTube will roll out the ability for more creators to “voice-reply” to comments on their videos later this year, after trialing the feature to a small group of creators in 2024.
- YouTube’s Ask Music feature creates a personalized radio station based on a description of the type of music you’re in the mood for (available on iOS and Android for all YouTube Premium and YouTube Music users).
- 4x playback speed is rolling out for YouTube Premium subscribes on mobile devices (alongside 2.05x, 2.5x, 3x playback).
- This summer, YouTube is planning to launch a new TV viewing experience, promising easier navigation, playback, quality tweaks, and streamlined access to comments, channel info, and subscribing.
YouTube has a few Easter eggs marking the 20th birthday, too.
It’s launching a celebratory Yoodle, a special version of the YouTube logo (it’s YouTube’s version of a Google Doodle) — and if you click on it, you’ll get “rick-rolled” with a custom mash-up of Rick Astley’s “Never Gonna Give You Up” (which is in the Billion Views Club).
On a few select videos on Wednesday, including “Me at the Zoo” and the “Never Gonna Give You Up” birthday clip, there’s a special birthday-themed video status bar (aka the “scrubber”); if you like the videos, a “20” animation pops up over the button. And for desktop YouTube users, if you type “bday” while on a watch page you will see a subtle blast from the past: The video player’s controls will revert back to an older design.
YouTube also is introducing a new limited YouTube 20th anniversary logo:
YouTube shared the backstory of the original logo: In 2005, co-founder Chad Hurley was en route to the office and came up with the idea — inspired by the logo for the CalTrain, a commuter line in Silicon Valley, and the TV Guide design.
Today, YouTube is larger and more powerful than any other player in Hollywood and is positioned to build on that lead, according to MoffettNathanson analyst Michael Nathanson, who recently dubbed YouTube the “new king of all media.”
For the full year 2024, YouTube was the second-largest media company by revenue at $54.2 billion, trailing only Disney, according to Nathanson. In 2025, YouTube is poised to take the top spot, ahead of Disney (excluding revenue in Disney’s theme parks and product segment), “making it not only the leader in engagement but revenue as well,” Nathanson wrote in a recent research note. If YouTube were a standalone business, it would be worth $475 billion to $550 billion, or about 30% of Alphabet’s current valuation, the analysts estimated.
YouTube now ranks as the largest aggregate TV content source in the U.S. according to Nielsen (based on viewing time), surpassing traditional TV giants like Disney, Paramount Global, Warner Bros. Discovery and NBCUniversal, as well as subscription-streaming leader Netflix.
