YouTube turns 10: How a Janet Jackson wardrobe malfunction sparked a global phenomenon

Feb 13, 2015

Sneezing Baby Panda Trailer

Everybody wants a piece of you when you're famous. One little sneeze and you're front page news with over a quarter of a billion viral YouTube views

IT SEEMS like it’s been around forever, but this site born above a pizza shop is about to turn 10. How did on earth did people get through the working day before YouTube?

YouTube is turning 10 on February 14.

Former PayPal employees Chad Hurley, Steve Chen and Jawed Karim created the website in a room above a pizzeria and a Japanese restaurant.

According to legend, Karim was frustrated he was unable to find any videos of the notorious “Nipplegate” incident at the 2004 Super Bowl where Janet Jackson’s infamous wardrobe malfunction bared her breast in a half-time show with Justin Timberlake.

At the time it was the most searched internet term in history, in an early indication of our web video interests.

And, yes, the infamous incident is on YouTube now.

Janet Jackson Nipplegate

Hurley had studied design at Indiana University of Pennsylvania, while Chen and Karim studied computer science together at the University of Illinois.

While the domain name youtube.com was activated on Valentine’s Day, 2005, its first video was not uploaded until April 23 of the same year.

The video featured one of the website’s co-founders, Jawed Karim, at the San Diego Zoo and was called “Me at the zoo”.

First video uploaded to YouTube

Since that first clip, more than 100 hours of video are uploaded each minute, and six billion hours are watched each month.

There are more than one billion unique users on the website monthly, and these viewers come from 61 countries.

The video with the most views is Psy’s “Gangnam Style”, with over two billion hits, spawning thousands of copycat and spoof versions.

Korean rapper bigger than Bieber

Rapper Psy from Korea has become a viral sensation with more Youtube hits of his latest video 'Gangnam Style' than Justin Bieber with his song 'Baby'

It was the first video to go over the one billion mark, and then the first to go over its second billion.

Most of the current top 10 YouTube clips of all time — and the top 100 — are dominated by music, with both PSY and Katy Perry featuring twice.

In case you’re wondering, the clicked-on clips include:

1. Gangnam Style, PSY

2. Baby, Justin Bieber featuring Ludacris

3. Party Rock Anthem, LMFAO

4. Charlie bit my finger — again!

5. Dark Horse, Katy Perry

6. On the Floor, Jennifer Lopez feat Pitbull

7. Love the Way You Lie, Eminem feat. Rihanna

8. Waka Waka, Shakira feat Freshlyground

9. Gentleman, Psy

10. Roar, Katy Perry

Source: Wiki, YouTube

And here’s Katy Perry in case you wanted to see it.

Katy Perry, Dark Horse

Other famous YouTube viral clips include “Charlie bit my finger, again”, “Sneezing Panda”, “Dramatic Chipmunk”, “David Goes to the Dentist” and “Nyan Cat”.

Which, of course, prompts us to want to show them to you again.

Who knows why this one took off?

Charlie bit my finger, again

This chipmunk still comes in handy when you’re trying to make a dramatic point.

Dramatic chipmunk

And apologies if you weren’t expecting to hear this again.

Rick Rolled!

And this could be useful for your next flashback theme party.

Evolution of dance

Poor David, I wonder how his teeth are going now?

David Goes to the Dentist

You know people have made money from YouTube, right?

Example, Chris Crocker here is available for bookings. The links are here..

Leave Britney alone

Makes you wonder how you coped before YouTube was born.

If you wanted to watch a music video, you probably recorded Rage actually waited for Video Hits to come on the TV.

Limewire allowed you to download videos if you wanted to see them at a different time, one of the older versions of a torrent platform.

So happy birthday YouTube, you may well survive us all.

They’ll probably be playing those experimental clips we posted at our funerals ...

Free Hug anyone?

Free Hugs

Originally published as YouTube turns 10: Is this Janet’s fault?
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