"THE REAL REASON YOUTUBE STARTED 😱🔥 (FEAT. MRBEAST… YOU WON’T BELIEVE THIS)"

Mr Beast Philanthropy

"What if everything you know about YouTube…   is WRONG? 😱    The real reason it started…   is not what you think 👀    With insights inspired by MrBeast…   this story gets CRAZY 💥    From a simple idea…   to the biggest platform in the world 🌍    But the TRUTH behind it…   will shock you 😳    🔥 HIGHLIGHTS   - 🎥 The origin of YouTube revealed   - 😱 Hidden facts no one talks about   - 🔥 MrBeast-inspired insights   - 💥 The truth behind its success    🌍 INTERNATIONAL TITLES   🇺🇸 "THE REAL REASON YOUTUBE STARTED" 😱🔥 (FEAT. MRBEAST… YOU WON’T BELIEVE THIS)   🇬🇧 "WHY YOUTUBE REALLY STARTED" 😱🔥 (FEAT. MRBEAST… SHOCKING TRUTH)   🇸🇦 "السبب الحقيقي لبدء يوتيوب" 😱🔥 (بمشاركة مستر بيست… حقيقة صادمة)   🇪🇸 "LA VERDADERA RAZÓN POR LA QUE EMPEZÓ YOUTUBE" 😱🔥 (CON MRBEAST… INCREÍBLE)   🇧🇷 "A VERDADEIRA RAZÃO QUE O YOUTUBE COMEÇOU" 😱🔥 (COM MRBEAST… CHOCANTE)   🇩🇪 "DER WAHRE GRUND, WARUM YOUTUBE STARTETE" 😱🔥 (MIT MRBEAST… UNGLAUBLICH)   🇫🇷 "LA VRAIE RAISON DU LANCEMENT DE YOUTUBE" 😱🔥 (AVEC MRBEAST… INCROYABLE)   🇮🇹 "IL VERO MOTIVO PER CUI YOUTUBE È NATO" 😱🔥 (CON MRBEAST… INCREDIBILE)   🇯🇵 "YouTubeが始まった本当の理由" 😱🔥（MrBeast出演…信じられない）   🇰🇷 "유튜브가 시작된 진짜 이유" 😱🔥 (미스터비스트 등장…충격)   🇮🇳 "YOUTUBE SHURU HONE KI ASLI WAJAH" 😱🔥 (MRBEAST KE SAATH… SHOCKING)   🇨🇳 "YouTube创立的真正原因" 😱🔥（与MrBeast…令人震惊）  Everything changes…   once you know this 👀    Follow 👉 MrBeast Philanthropy    🔥 SEO TAGS   #YouTube #MrBeast #YouTubeHistory   #OriginStory #ViralFacts #ContentCreation   #TrendingNow #MustWatch #DigitalMedia   #ShockingTruth #LearnSomething

Transcript

00:00I'm Mr. Beast, and you're probably watching this on your phone right now.

00:03Probably on YouTube, but how did this all even get started?

00:07In 2004, when I was six years old, a guy named Jawed Karim couldn't find two videos online.

00:13Janet Jackson's Super Bowl wardrobe malfunction, and also footage of a recent tsunami.

00:19Honestly, my mom wouldn't have let me watch either.

00:21Two of the biggest news stories in the world, nowhere to be found online.

00:24His friends Chad Hurley and Steve Chen had a similar frustration.

00:28They couldn't share videos online they recorded during a dinner party.

00:31But all three of them had just made good money at PayPal, and they kept landing on the same idea.

00:36Video sharing shouldn't be this hard.

00:38Fast forward to Valentine's Day 2004 in Hurley's garage.

00:42They needed a name, Tube meant TV, so why not make it more personal?

00:47YouTube.

00:47They bought the domain that night.

00:49Funny enough, Karim's original pitch was actually to make it a dating site,

00:53kind of hot or not style, but clearly that didn't pan out.

00:57Pan out.

00:59What are you doing?

01:00I'm making a history video about YouTube.

01:03But this is my channel.

01:04I'm Mr. Beat.

01:06You're Mr. Beast, remember?

01:08Yeah, but the difference is only an S.

01:10Like, are we going to act like that's the big deal?

01:12I appreciate that, mister.

01:14But I'm the American history guy.

01:17I can handle it.

01:18Besides, what do you know about YouTube?

01:21How are you even qualified?

01:22You know, I might have more subscribers than anyone else in the world.

01:26Yeah, I heard about that.

01:28Okay, how about this?

01:29How about I'll let you hang around to chime in every now and then?

01:33But otherwise, you're just going to have to let the teacher teach, all right?

01:36I was just trying to make this more exciting.

01:40Oh, you're helping, all right.

01:43Okay, so where were we?

01:45Hot or not?

01:46Yes, Kareem, Hurley, and Chen originally meant for YouTube.com to be a dating site.

01:53However, after Yahoo!

01:56Bought Flickr, a site that lets folks upload and share photos, for apparently $25 million,

02:02the three decided that YouTube should basically be more like Flickr.

02:07In other words, YouTube would become a place where anyone could share personal videos.

02:12April 23, 2005.

02:14That's the day Kareem uploaded this.

02:17This, the very first video uploaded to YouTube.

02:20Really, really long prompts, and that's cool.

02:26That video's still up today, by the way.

02:29It currently has 385,688,248 views.

02:36Oh, wait, hold on.

02:37Refreshing.

02:38It currently has 385,688,530 views.

02:45Refreshing it again.

02:46Now it has 385,688,890 views.

02:52Please stop that.

02:54Sorry.

02:54By that time, Kareem, Hurley, and Chen had enough money from investors to launch a beta version

03:01of the site, which means YouTube would be public, but they'd still be making lots of changes

03:06to it in order to make it better.

03:08After they opened up YouTube to the public in May, they had a problem.

03:12Just a tiny one.

03:13People weren't uploading videos to the site.

03:17Well, that actually seems like a pretty big problem, since without people uploading their

03:23videos, there wouldn't be stuff for people to watch.

03:27Oops.

03:27But that began to change when they did two things.

03:31Number one, they allowed users to easily comment underneath and share videos, especially on

03:40other quickly growing social media sites like MySpace and the Facebook.

03:46Number two, they let users post pirated clips from TV and movies.

03:51Well, that seemed to work.

03:53By September, YouTube was getting 100,000 views a day.

03:57Wow.

03:57I get 100,000 views a minute.

04:01I brag about it.

04:03I kind of just did.

04:06This, a Nike ad uploaded by some random person, was the first YouTube video to break 1 million

04:14views.

04:14By the time the site went fully public on December 15, 2005, YouTube was getting 8 million views

04:23a day.

04:24But not everyone appreciated the fact that YouTube lets users post pirated clips from

04:30TV and movies.

04:32You know, like the people who made lots of money from TV and movies.

04:37In February 2006, after this Saturday Night Live video went viral on the site, NBC asked

04:45YouTube to take it down for real.

04:48But flash forward to just a few months later, and NBC was like, uh, we're good, and paid

04:54YouTube to promote some of its shows.

04:57On May 18, 2006, I decided to post my first ever video on YouTube.

05:04There it is.

05:05It's a clip of my band, Electric Needle Room, performing a song at a local show.

05:11The video is still up, by the way.

05:12It currently has 1,697 views...oh wait, um, let me refresh that...oh...okay, it looks

05:21like it still just has 1,697 views.

05:25Let me, uh, refresh the page again, just for good measure.

05:28Dang it, it still has 1,697 views.

05:31Okay.

05:31Please stop that.

05:33Well, that's depressing.

05:34Of course, back then, internet speeds were quite slower than they are now, so even low-res

05:40videos like this one took forever to upload.

05:43I vividly remember beginning the upload before I went to bed, and then waking up the next

05:48morning to find the video still uploading.

05:51How old were you in May 2006?

05:54I was 8 years old.

05:57Around the time of Mr. Beast's 8th birthday, YouTube had adopted the slogan, Broadcast Yourself,

06:04and was growing way faster than any other video platform online.

06:09In July 2006, users were uploading around 65,000 new videos every day, and the site was getting

06:15around 100 million video views a day.

06:19For comparison, we now have multiple channels that do over 100 million views a day now.

06:24Brag about it.

06:26And due to this success, a little company called Google had its eyes on YouTube.

06:33It had tried its own video sharing platform, Google Video, but honestly, it was kind of lame.

06:39What do you do when you're lame, but others are awesome?

06:42You buy the awesome so it's yours.

06:46Or, uh, buy the others who are awesome so that you can be awesome?

06:51On October 9, 2006, Google announced it had bought YouTube for $1.65 billion in stock.

07:00At the time, YouTube had only around 65 employees.

07:04As it turns out, YouTube was one of the best investments Google ever made.

07:09In part due to Google's infrastructure and money it needed to scale up, the site continued

07:14to dramatically grow.

07:162007 was indeed a huge year for YouTube.

07:21In May, the site started its partner program to let people get paid for the videos they

07:27posted.

07:28Basically, the uploader of the video got to share the revenue produced by advertising on

07:34the site.

07:35And it was way more generous than any other site.

07:38Even to this day, YouTube usually takes 45% of the advertising revenue from videos in

07:46the partner program, with 55% going directly to the uploader.

07:51I know that to this day, I still make most of my money from YouTube ad revenue.

07:56What about you?

08:00Back in 2007, though, only a select few creators could make ad revenue from their stuff.

08:07Still, within months, some of these creators were already making six figure incomes from

08:13YouTube alone.

08:14This 56 second viral video, first posted on YouTube in May 2007, eventually went on to

08:30earn hundreds of thousands of dollars thanks to this program.

08:34I should add that YouTube also began to identify copyrighted content to make sure the actual

08:40rights holders got the ad revenue, not the pirates.

08:44YouTube made such a splash in 2007 that even presidential candidates were announcing their

08:50campaigns via the platform.

08:53One of those candidates, a US Senator from Illinois named Barack Obama, took advantage of

08:58the platform for his campaign quite well.

09:01And one last thing about 2007.

09:03During that one year alone, YouTube consumed as much bandwidth as the entire internet did

09:09in the year 2000.

09:12In the year 2000!

09:16Holy wow!

09:18By 2008, vlogs were all the rage.

09:22What is a vlog, you may be asking?

09:25Well, it's like a blog, but in video format.

09:29What is a blog, you may be asking?

09:32Oh, well, short for weblog.

09:35Blogs are just websites in which people regularly post stuff from, often in a diary-style format.

09:42What is a diary, you may be asking?

09:45Please stop that.

09:46Okay, moving on.

09:47So, what were the YouTubers that you remember watching as a kid?

09:51So, Woody's Gamertag, who's a Call of Duty YouTuber.

09:53And then Ray William Johnson from Equals 3.

09:56Oh, wow.

09:57Yeah.

09:57Despite the popularity of vlogs, over the next two years, YouTube was still primarily known

10:03as a place where viral videos did well, but not so much regular programming.

10:08You know, cats and wild moments caught on video type of stuff.

10:13It's a double rainbow all the way.

10:16Woah, that's so intense.

10:18But that changed when giant media companies began partnering with YouTube.

10:24Not only that, this is when YouTube added live events and better playback features.

10:29By the end of 2008, the site had begun experimenting with HD video.

10:35By the end of 2009, you could upload full 1080p HD videos, baby.

10:41Do you remember when you couldn't post a video longer than 10 minutes?

10:44I've always been able to post videos longer than 10 minutes.

10:48Oh, fascinating.

10:50I think you're just old.

10:51In July 2010, John and Hank Green, famous on YouTube for their Vlogbrothers channel in

10:57which they sent weekly vlogs to each other for the whole world to see, held the first VidCon,

11:03a convention for video influencers.

11:06Over the following years, it'd go on to become one of the biggest gatherings of creators,

11:11fans, and brands in the world.

11:14Yeah, we've been a few times.

11:15By the way, John and Hank are still sending each other weekly vlogs.

11:20It's like the world's longest conversation.

11:23On July 29, 2010, YouTube officially increased the upload video length limit from 10 minutes

11:29to 15 minutes.

11:31Eventually, YouTubers, as they were now called, could unlock way longer video lengths through

11:37verified accounts.

11:38As a matter of fact, verified accounts now can post videos up to 12 hours long.

11:44What's the longest video you ever uploaded to YouTube?

11:47I counted to 100,000, which took 40 hours.

11:50Ah, so they raised it and they must have lowered it again after that.

11:53Hmm.

11:54Fun fact, I spent two weeks trying to upload the video over a hundred times.

11:57Then I realized there's a 24 hour limit, trimmed it down to 23 hours and 59 minutes, and it

12:02went through.

12:02That's why parts of it are sped up, right?

12:04Yeah, exactly.

12:05Yeah.

12:05I remember watching that whole thing and Mrs. Beat came in and she's like,

12:10what are you watching?

12:12Do you remember that actually?

12:13Also by 2010, a company called Vevo was providing music videos to YouTube. Music videos quickly

12:20became the most popular on the platform since, I don't know, I guess music is a big deal

12:27or something.

12:28Since this time, every video that has become the most watched on YouTube has been some

12:34sort of music video.

12:35Today, the most watched YouTube video of all time is, unfortunately, the baby shark dance,

12:42which is quickly approaching 17 billion views.

12:46Ugh.

12:47That's disgusting.

12:48By 2011, algorithms had started to become more sophisticated at influencing recommendations

12:56and subscriber behavior.

12:58It was in January of that year, 2011, that I decided I was going to start a new channel

13:04where I posted my educational videos, videos that I had previously only shown to my students

13:10in the classroom when I taught American history.

13:12This might surprise you to hear, but there weren't many educational channels on the platform

13:18at the time.

13:19Heck, Crash Course didn't even exist yet, and Vsauce was still making video game videos.

13:25Heck, in 2011, there also weren't many news and politics videos, beauty and fashion videos,

13:32reaction content, or even kids content.

13:36However, over the next five years, YouTube became a platform for careers.

13:40Not just viral hits.

13:42Channels like PewDiePie and Smosh began to accumulate millions of subscribers.

13:48YouTube developed its own culture.

13:51Video creators began to take sponsorships, sell merchandise, and do live events.

13:56Multi-channel networks, or MCNs, became a thing to organize bigger operations.

14:02YouTube expanded globally with localized sites and languages.

14:07As smartphones became more common, more and more folks began to exclusively watch videos

14:13on their phones.

14:15I don't think we appreciate today how wild of a change that truly was, to be able to

14:20watch a video on your phone.

14:24Crazy town.

14:26For years, most people watched YouTube videos on their phone.

14:29When did you start your channel, and what type of videos did you make?

14:33When I was 13, and there were really bad Minecraft videos.

14:38By 2015, YouTube had become the main platform for music, news, and pop culture.

14:45That's also when YouTube Red debuted, now called YouTube Premium, in which viewers can pay

14:52a fee to access ad-free content and original programming.

14:562015 was when I started my Presidential Elections in American History series, by the way.

15:03When would you say was the golden age of YouTube?

15:07When I was a little kid, and I watched like a White Boy 7-Streak, Woody's Gamertag, X-Draws

15:11Me, Call of Duty videos, nothing will ever beat that.

15:14It was so much fun.

15:15In 2017, YouTube introduced Super Chats, in which viewers can buy a chat message so that

15:22it stands out among the pack during livestreams.

15:26Within a year, YouTube would introduce channel memberships, a way for dedicated subscribers

15:31to get extra perks for their loyalty to one channel.

15:35But it was around this time that YouTube began to go through some growing pains.

15:39Because, for the most part, just about anyone could post anything on there, some controversial

15:46stuff got posted, and advertisers got pretty darn worried when their ads got played in front

15:52of videos that, I don't know, glorified violence and promoted extremist groups and stuff.

15:57The quote, YouTube ad-pocalypse described a trend that began in 2017 in which many advertisers

16:06boycotted and withdrew their ads from the platform, resulting in a bunch of negative traditional

16:12media coverage.

16:14In response, YouTube dramatically cracked down on offensive content and made it much more

16:20difficult to monetize controversial videos.

16:22It also strengthened its YouTube Kids app to filter out stuff seen as quote, inappropriate

16:29for kids.

16:31That same year, TikTok launched, and I'm not talking about the Kesha song.

16:36No one was thinking that, you monster!

16:37Unlike YouTube, TikTok was built for the phone.

16:41It featured vertical videos, extremely short vertical videos.

16:46In fact, the max length for early TikTok videos was just 15 seconds, and for the longest

16:51time, the max length for them was just 60 seconds.

16:55Well, by 2019, TikTok had become huge, especially with the young folks.

17:02And so I started a TikTok account.

17:05There's my first TikTok video I ever posted on December 14, 2019.

17:10Yeah, I think I was trying to impersonate Napoleon for some reason?

17:14And YouTube responded by introducing shorts.

17:17No, not those kind of shorts.

17:20Yes, those kind of shorts.

17:21Which it first rolled out in 2020.

17:24Do you remember the first vertical video you ever uploaded?

17:27No.

17:29Really?

17:30Probably wasn't special.

17:31Come to think of it, I don't think I do either.

17:34I don't think anyone does.

17:35Right?

17:36Okay, I did look it up.

17:38The first short I released was on July 30, 2021.

17:42And about embargoes and sanctions for some reason.

17:46Man, I'm a dork.

17:47It looked really weird since I stretched my body to fit the horizontally shot video how

17:52I wanted it to vertically.

17:54What the heck?

17:55A random black wire at the top of the video?

17:57Man, I struggled.

17:59Shorts quickly became huge.

18:02By early 2023, they had reached tens of billions of daily views.

18:07That's billions with a B. By 2024, they had become the platform's most dominant growth

18:13engine, and the best way for new channels to quickly find an audience.

18:17Indeed, shorts, which now have a max length of three minutes, completely rewired YouTube's

18:24discovery algorithms, production cadence, and even economic incentives.

18:30It also seemed to shorten our attention spans.

18:33The COVID-19

18:34COVID-19!

18:36COVID-19!

18:37COVID-19!

18:38Pandemic

18:38saw YouTube continue to dramatically grow, especially since so many folks were stuck at

18:44home. In fact, my channel did so well during the pandemic that, in 2021, I left Teaching

18:51in the Classroom to join the hundreds of thousands of people around the world who already consider

18:57themselves full-time YouTubers.

19:00So, when did you decide you wanted to become a full-time YouTuber?

19:04I've never really worked a job, it just kind of happened.

19:06Yeah, you're doing it anyway, and you just kind of never stopped.

19:08Yeah, and then I just was like, oh, I make enough money.

19:12Yeah, I was like, oh, I actually make more money than I do teaching, so I guess I'll just

19:15do the YouTube videos.

19:17Oh, wow.

19:17Yeah.

19:17Teach more people.

19:18Yeah, exactly.

19:19Despite the popularity of shorts, YouTubers were now making more epic long-form content than

19:26ever before, we're talking really high production values which now compete with the big-budget

19:31Hollywood studio films.

19:33Oh, you want an example?

19:35On November 24, 2021, Mr. Beast, the guy who keeps trying to take over this video, released

19:42a video called $456,000 Squid Game in Real Life, a video based on the hugely popular South

19:50Korean Netflix show Squid Game.

19:53The video took $3.5 million to produce, and its recreated sets were visually stunning.

20:01Mr. Beast's ambition, I'd say, paid off, as the video got 100 million views in less

20:07than three days, and currently has around 914 million views.

20:12In recent years, YouTube has rolled out new features like automatic language dubbing, shopping

20:18timestamps, video chapters, premieres, and AI filters, which has been interesting.

20:26Last year, YouTube made more than $36 billion in ad revenue alone.

20:33Today, YouTube is the second most visited website in the world.

20:37The only site that tops it?

20:38Google Search.

20:39YouTube is now mostly on the BIG black mirrors, not the small ones.

20:44Yep, more people watch YouTube on TV today than any other device.

20:49One could argue that YouTube is bigger than every cable and broadcast network combined.

20:56Today, there are literally tens of millions of YouTube channels.

21:00Based on my estimates, I believe there are at least 2 million people around the world today

21:05that do what we do. YouTube full time. I mean.

21:12I argue it now has created more millionaires under 30 than Hollywood or the TV, film, or music industries ever

21:20did.

21:21YouTube has turned hobbies into careers. It has democratized and decentralized media production, distribution, and fame.

21:32The term, quote, influencer only became a thing due to YouTube.

21:37It's changed how we learn and how we interact with each other.

21:41It changed advertising and commerce. It's transformed politics, culture.

21:47It's now THE dominant discovery platform. From music, to food, to clothing, to everything in between.

21:55Simply put, YouTube has continued to keep the spirit of innovation and creation more alive, arguably more than any other

22:03place today, digital or physical.

22:06Which brings us to today.

22:09And who better exemplifies YouTube's impact and influence than the most impactful and influential YouTuber of all time?

22:18One who has dramatically changed the world through their philanthropy and cultural influence.

22:24I'm talking about Scottman, of course. Scottman895Travel.

22:30Oh, and Mr. Beast.

22:33I can't believe all this started with a wardrobe malfunction.

22:38History is weird, man.

22:40You can say that again.

22:48Well, I get that many views a minute.

22:52Brag about it.

22:57I just keep walking up every time.

23:00I'm putting the biggest YouTuber in the world to shame.

23:03Thanks for staying curious.

23:05Up here in this corner is a video I made making the argument that all the best art today can

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