Its name alone has become a verb: Missed the latest viral phenomenon? Just YouTube it.

Somehow 21st-century life without YouTube seems unthinkable, no?

And yet it began as a quirky idea by three former PayPal employees — Jawed Karim, Chad Hurley and Steve Chen — who activated their domain on Valentine's Day 2005, hazy about its direction.

At his University of Illinois commencement speech back in 2007, the German-born Karim explained, "We didn't even know how to describe our new product. To generate interest, we just said it was a new kind of dating site. We even had a slogan for it: 'Tune in, Hook up'." No one did.

Even putting out ads on Craigslist in Las Vegas and Los Angeles, where they offered to pay women $20 to upload videos of themselves to the site, didn't work.

'Like, comment or subscribe'

They pivoted when they noticed that people were instead uploading videos of dogs, vacations and the like. "We found this very interesting. We said, 'Why not let the users define what YouTube is all about?' By June, we had completely revamped the website, making it more open and general. It worked."

Within a year of its launch, users worldwide were drawn to YouTube's user-friendly interface and the novelty of allowing people to be content creators with just an account and a camera. What's more, you could "like, comment or subscribe" as content unfolds — creating an inclusive, immersive experience.

By November 2006, Google recognized its potential and acquired YouTube for $1.65 billion (€1.6 billion) in stock.

That blink-and-miss moment

YouTube lore goes that Karim conceived the idea to code a website for people to share home videos after he'd unsuccessfully sought footage of two disparate events in 2004.

In February, the infamous "Nipplegate" incident during the Super Bowl in the US, where singer Janet Jackson's wardrobe malfunction during a half-time show with Justin Timberlake, saw a spike in demand for video clips from those who missed the split-second snafu.

In December, the Indian Ocean tsunami saw people desperately searching for and sharing video footage of the disaster.

Today, more than 500 hours of content are uploaded to the service every minute.

It has also become the site of viral videos that have left indelible marks on global culture, be it the innocent charm of "Charlie Bit My Finger" or infectious energy of South Korean singer Psy's "Gangnam Style" in 2012. Besides becoming the first video to reach one billion views, the latter also demonstrated the platform's ability to transcend cultural and linguistic barriers.

For the record, "Baby Shark Dance" is currently YouTube's most viewed video with more than 15 billion views.

From unknowns to overnight sensations

No YouTube origin story is complete without mentioning pop sensation Justin Bieber's discovery. In 2007, Patti Mallette uploaded videos of her young son singing covers, catching the eye of talent manager Scooter Braun. How this panned out is now pop music legend, but it illustrated the site's potential as a launchpad for undiscovered talent. Bieber's rise to fame also reflected YouTube's role in leveling the playing field in the entertainment industry, where anyone with a camera and a nice set of pipes could potentially become the next big thing.

Hollywood calling

Ditto filmmaking.

For instance, after the short film written and directed by Wesley Wang, "Nothing, Except Everything," went viral, the 20-year-old filmmaker is now teaming up with the production company of Darren Aronofsky ("The Whale" [2022] and "Black Swan" [2010]), Protozoa, to create a feature-length version of the work. The 13-minute short film, which delves into teenage angst in a high school setting, was created during Wang's senior year of high school. It received over 4.4 million views after debuting on YouTube and won the Grand Jury Prize at Indianapolis's Indy Shorts Film Festival. 

Meanwhile, Australian twins Daniel and Micheal Philippou, who created the RackaRacka channel on YouTube, delivered a hit with their 2022 feature-length horror movie "Talk To Me."

The go-to for 'How to's…'

But perhaps the platform is best known for being the source of helpful hacks: anything from "How to take moon photos with the iPhone" to "Cleaning with Coca-Cola."

Channels like TED-Ed, Khan Academy and CrashCourse also transformed the platform into a virtual classroom accessible to anyone, anywhere.

A 2021 "Social Media Use" study by the Pew Research Centre stated that during the COVID-19 pandemic and lockdown, YouTube saw the most growth of any social media platform as people sought productive ways to spend their time.

Fun fact: Finneas O'Connell — a.k.a. Billie Eilish's brother and a music producer — told Future Music in September 2021 that he first learned the foundations of music from his parents, "then I learned the rest from YouTube." He produced Eilish's debut album "When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go?", which won multiple Grammys in 2020, including Album of the Year. 

Not without brickbats

The platform has nevertheless also faced criticism on the handling of copyrighted content, the promotion of conspiracy theories and the presence of inappropriate content. Various measures have been implemented to address these concerns, including stricter content policies and improved algorithms to filter out harmful content.

For example, the platform faced backlash for allowing the spread of anti-vaccine misinformation and extremist content, prompting it to strengthen its content moderation policies and partner with fact-checking organizations. But disinformation and misinformation on the platform still abound, say critics. Google has been rejecting the EU's rules to tackle this issue on YouTube.

'Whatever happened to…?'

"Me at the zoo" is recognized as the first video uploaded to YouTube on April 23, 2005. The 19-second clip features Jawed Karim speaking in front of the elephant enclosure of the San Diego zoo. 

Yet, unlike some headline-grabbing tech bros, Karim, Chad Hurley and Steve Chen have generally maintained low profiles; a common denominator of their post-YouTube lives is their (individual) support of diverse start-ups over the years. The trio's whereabouts today have also provided fodder for videos on the platform they created two decades ago. 

One commenter on one such video perhaps summarizes it best: "It's crazy to think that these three guys didn't just change the internet, but also the world."

Edited by: Elizabeth Grenier