60 Fun Facts About YouTubers

What is the title of the first video ever uploaded to YouTube?

The 19-second clip shows co-founder Jawed Karim in front of the elephants at San Diego Zoo, noting that they have really long trunks.

YouTube's three founders had all previously worked at which company?

Chad Hurley, Steve Chen and Jawed Karim registered the site on Valentine's Day 2005.

For how much did Google buy YouTube in November 2006?

It was paid in stock, and YouTube is now the second-most-visited website on Earth behind Google itself.

What YouTube record does the San Diego Zoo's 2020 reply under "Me at the zoo" hold?

The zoo wrote that it was honoured the first-ever YouTube video was filmed there, and picked up around 4.5 million likes for it.

Which video was the first on YouTube to reach a billion views, in December 2012?

It later blew past the 32-bit view counter's limit of 2,147,483,647, forcing YouTube to upgrade its maths.

Which children's video became the first to pass 10 billion views, in January 2022?

Pinkfong's earworm remains the most-viewed video on the site by a distance, at more than 17 billion.

Which music video ended Psy's reign at the top of the most-viewed list in July 2017?

The Wiz Khalifa and Charlie Puth tribute from Furious 7 held the top spot only briefly before Despacito took over later that year.

Before Psy took over in 2012, which video had been the site's most-viewed since 2010?

The Bieber video also spent seven years as the most-disliked upload on the site.

Which upload overtook Justin Bieber's "Baby" as the site's most-disliked video in December 2018?

The year-in-review series ran from 2010 and was quietly cancelled in 2021 after the backlash.

How many subscribers does a channel need to earn a Silver Play Button?

Gold is a million, Diamond ten million, and the Red Diamond marks 100 million.

The Red Diamond Play Button is awarded at what subscriber count?

T-Series received the first one on May 29, 2019, and PewDiePie the second that August.

What is MrBeast's real name?

He was born in Wichita, Kansas, raised in Greenville, North Carolina, and first uploaded as MrBeast6000 in 2012.

MrBeast's breakthrough viral video in January 2017 showed him doing what?

It took him about 40 hours and marked the shift from Let's Plays to the stunt format he built an empire on.

MrBeast's channel became the most-subscribed on YouTube in June 2024 by overtaking which Indian channel?

The music label founded by Gulshan Kumar had held the crown since beating PewDiePie in 2019.

What is the name of MrBeast's chocolate bar brand, launched in 2022?

MrBeast Burger came first as a virtual restaurant in 2020, and Lunchly (a lunch kit) followed in 2024.

MrBeast's Amazon Prime competition Beast Games put how many contestants in the running for $5 million?

The prize was billed as the largest in television history when the show debuted in December 2024.

MrBeast's 2019 fundraiser Team Trees set out to plant how many trees?

The follow-up, Team Seas, raised more than $34 million to pull rubbish out of the ocean.

What is PewDiePie's real name?

He was born in Gothenburg in 1989 and moved to Japan in 2022 with his wife Marzia.

PewDiePie built his early audience with Let's Play videos of which horror game?

By August 2013 he was YouTube's most-subscribed individual creator, passing Smosh.

What was PewDiePie's October 2018 diss track during his subscriber race with an Indian music label called?

It became his most-viewed video; "Congratulations" was the follow-up conceding the race in 2019.

Which company dropped PewDiePie as a partner in 2017, two years before he lost YouTube's most-subscribed title?

Disney's Maker Studios cut ties in 2017 after a Wall Street Journal report on antisemitic jokes in his videos.

Which duo founded Smosh, the channel that was YouTube's most-subscribed as early as 2006?

Their lip-synced Pokémon theme video was once the most-viewed on the whole site before a copyright takedown.

Which company bought Smosh in 2019 after its parent Defy Media collapsed?

Rhett and Link's company owned it until Hecox and Padilla bought back majority control in June 2023.

Markiplier's channel name combines his first name with which word?

Mark Fischbach was born in Honolulu and started the channel in 2012 planning to make sketch comedy.

Markiplier and Ethan Nestor's channel Unus Annus uploaded daily and then did what after exactly one year?

The name is Latin for "one year", and the November 2020 deletion was the point of the project.

Which horror video game did Markiplier adapt into a film he wrote, directed and starred in?

His clothing brand Cloak and the Distractible podcast round out a business that started with Let's Plays.

Ireland's most-subscribed YouTuber, Jacksepticeye, is really called what?

"Jack" was a childhood nickname and "Septic Eye" came from an eye injury in a football match.

With which greeting does Jacksepticeye open his videos?

His annual Thankmas charity streams have raised more than $25 million, and he had a cameo in Free Guy.

Jenna Mourey took her YouTube stage name from what?

Her 2010 video "How to Trick People into Thinking You're Good Looking" pulled 5.3 million views in its first week.

In what year did YouTuber Jenna Mourey (Jenna Marbles) announce her indefinite hiatus?

She left after apologising for older videos, having been one of the first YouTubers to get a Madame Tussauds wax figure.

The five members of Dude Perfect met as roommates at which university?

Their first backyard basketball trick-shot video in 2009 got 200,000 views in a week; they now hold more than 20 Guinness records.

What animal is Dude Perfect's costumed mascot?

The character became a fixture at college basketball games; the group is based in Frisco, Texas.

How old was Ryan Kaji when Ryan ToysReview began in 2015?

Forbes named him the highest-paid YouTuber for 2018, 2019 and 2020, peaking at $29.5 million.

Which retailer launched the Ryan's World toy line in 2018?

The franchise added a Nickelodeon show, Ryan's Mystery Playdate, and a feature film in 2024.

What is the name of the main character in Cocomelon's nursery-rhyme videos?

The channel began in 2006 as "checkgate" and was bought by Moonbug Entertainment in 2020.

In what year was the channel now called Cocomelon first created?

Jay Jeon and his wife ran it as ABC Kid TV for years before the rebrand that made it a top-three channel.

Which vlogger's coffee company, launched in 2019, shares her surname?

Time named her one of the 25 most influential people on the internet that year for reinventing the vlog with jump cuts and on-screen text.

Which fashion house made the Chamberlain Coffee founder a brand ambassador in 2019?

She also hosts the Anything Goes podcast and added Cartier to her ambassador roles in 2022.

In Brotherhood 2.0, the 2007 project that began Vlogbrothers, John and Hank Green agreed to what?

The community that formed around them called itself Nerdfighteria and still runs the Project for Awesome charity drive.

What is the name of the fan community that grew up around the Vlogbrothers?

The Greens went on to build Crash Course and SciShow, and John wrote The Fault in Our Stars.

The Green brothers founded which annual online-video convention in 2010?

It began at a Los Angeles hotel with about 1,400 attendees and moved to the Anaheim Convention Center in 2012.

Which media company bought the Greens' Anaheim video convention in 2018?

Paramount Global sold it on to the events firm Informa in 2024.

Casey Neistat's 2003 short film criticising Apple's battery replacement policy was called what?

The stencil-and-spray-paint protest is credited with pushing Apple to change its policy; his HBO series came in 2010.

Casey Neistat's video app Beme was bought in 2016 for about $25 million by which company?

His Nike spot "Make It Count" famously blew the whole budget on a trip around the world.

Logan Paul co-founded the drink brand Prime with which fellow YouTuber and boxing rival?

The two fought to a draw in 2018 and KSI won the 2019 rematch before they went into business together.

Which WWE title did Logan Paul win in November 2023?

He signed with WWE in 2022, a year after his exhibition bout with Floyd Mayweather.

Jake Paul beat which former heavyweight champion at AT&T Stadium on November 15, 2024?

The fight streamed on Netflix; Paul had earlier been fired from Disney's Bizaardvark and made "It's Everyday Bro".

Jake Paul was fired in 2017 from which children's-channel sitcom after neighbourhood complaints?

He played Dirk Mann on the Disney Channel show; his 2017 single "It's Everyday Bro" became one of the site's most-disliked videos.

Beauty YouTuber Michelle Phan co-founded which subscription box company in 2011?

It launched as MyGlam and was valued at over $500 million by 2015; she was also Lancôme's first video makeup artist.

Which record label became the first YouTube channel to reach 100 million subscribers, in May 2019?

Founded by Gulshan Kumar in 1983 selling cassettes, it now has more than 300 million subscribers.

Who replaced Susan Wojcicki as YouTube's CEO in 2023?

By 2024 the platform he inherited had 2.7 billion monthly users watching more than a billion hours a day.

What does the 'HD' in tech reviewer Marques Brownlee's channel name MKBHD stand for?

Brownlee is also a world-champion ultimate frisbee player, winning the 2022 WFDF title with New York PoNY.

Rhett & Link met on the first day of first grade in 1984 in which US state?

Both later studied engineering at NC State and quit engineering jobs before building Good Mythical Morning.

Before YouTube, Mark Rober spent seven years at NASA's JPL working on which Mars rover?

His first viral video was a 2011 Halloween costume that used two iPads to fake a see-through hole in his torso.

What was the title of Lilly Singh's first book, a 2017 New York Times bestseller?

Singh went on to host NBC's A Little Late with Lilly Singh from 2019 to 2021.

Ryan Higa of nigahiga dropped out of which course at UNLV to make videos full-time?

Higa, a judo black belt from Hilo, Hawaii, started out lip-syncing with Sean Fujiyoshi in high school in 2006.

How did Michael Stevens come up with the name Vsauce in 2010?

He used FakeNameGenerator.com to churn out pronounceable domain names until one appealed to him.

In August 2019, Ninja left Twitch to stream exclusively on which Microsoft-owned platform?

His wife and manager said the Twitch contract had limited his ability to build a brand beyond gaming.

Which 2014 Zoella novel set a first-week sales record for a debut novelist?

Two sequels followed, and she later co-wrote The Magpie Society duology with Amy McCulloch.

Rosanna Pansino hosts which long-running YouTube baking series, started in 2011?

She is known for never missing a scheduled upload and runs YouTube's most popular cooking channel.