110 Fun Facts About YouTubers

What is the title of the first video ever uploaded to YouTube, on April 23, 2005?

Me at the zoo 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?

PayPal. Chad Hurley, Steve Chen and Jawed Karim were all early PayPal employees before they registered the YouTube domain on 14 February 2005.

For how much did Google buy YouTube in November 2006?

$1.65B, paid entirely in Google stock; the deal was announced on 9 October 2006 and completed on 13 November 2006.

What record did the San Diego Zoo's 2020 reply under "Me at the zoo" set?

Most-liked comment. The zoo wrote that it was honoured the first-ever YouTube video was filmed there, and the reply collected more than four million likes.

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

Gangnam Style by Psy 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 on YouTube to pass 10 billion views, in January 2022?

Baby Shark Dance, Pinkfong's children's song, passed 10 billion views on 13 January 2022, the first video on the site to reach that mark.

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

See You Again, Wiz Khalifa and Charlie Puth's Furious 7 tribute, passed Gangnam Style on 10 July 2017 and was itself overtaken by Despacito that August.

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

Baby by Justin Bieber passed Lady Gaga's Bad Romance in July 2010 and stayed the most-viewed video until Gangnam Style overtook it in November 2012.

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?

100K. The Silver Play Button marks 100,000 subscribers; the next tier, the Gold Play Button, arrives at one million.

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

100M. The Red Diamond Play Button marks 100 million subscribers and was first awarded in May 2019.

What is MrBeast's real name?

Jimmy Donaldson, raised in Greenville, North Carolina, first uploaded as MrBeast6000 in 2012.

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

Counting to 100,000. The stunt took him roughly 40 hours and marked his shift from Let's Plays to the challenge format the channel was built 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?

Feastables launched in January 2022 with a line of chocolate bars; MrBeast Burger preceded it as a virtual restaurant in 2020, and the Lunchly lunch kit followed in 2024.

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

1,000 contestants competed for the $5 million prize, billed as the largest in television history when Beast Games debuted on Prime Video in December 2024.

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

20M. Team Trees, launched with Mark Rober in October 2019, raised $20 million for the Arbor Day Foundation to plant 20 million trees, reaching the goal that December.

What is PewDiePie's real name?

Felix Kjellberg 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?

Amnesia: The Dark Descent playthroughs did it; 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?

Bitch Lasagna, released 5 October 2018, became PewDiePie's most-viewed video; Congratulations followed in March 2019 to concede the race.

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?

Ian Hecox and Anthony Padilla. Their lip-synced Pokémon theme video was briefly the most-viewed on the whole site in 2006 before a copyright takedown.

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

Mythical Entertainment, Rhett and Link's company, bought Smosh in February 2019 and owned it until Hecox and Padilla bought back majority control in June 2023.

In which U.S. city was Markiplier raised?

Cincinnati. Mark Fischbach was born in Honolulu but grew up in Cincinnati, Ohio, where he studied biomedical engineering at the University of Cincinnati before leaving to make videos.

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?

Iron Lung, adapted from David Szymanski's 2022 submarine horror game, was Markiplier's feature debut as writer, director and lead actor.

What is the real name of Irish YouTuber Jacksepticeye?

Seán McLoughlin. 'Jack' was a childhood nickname and 'Septic Eye' came from an eye injury he picked up in a football match.

With which greeting does Jacksepticeye open his videos?

"Top of the morning to ya, laddies" is the shouted intro that opens his videos; the Irish creator also had a cameo as himself in 2021's Free Guy.

Jenna Mourey, one of YouTube's early stars, took her stage name from what?

Her dog Mr. Marbles inspired the name; 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?

2020. She announced the indefinite hiatus in June 2020 after apologising for older videos; in 2015 she had been among the first YouTubers given a Madame Tussauds wax figure.

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

Texas A&M. The five were roommates at Texas A&M in College Station; their first backyard trick-shot video in 2009 drew 200,000 views in its first week.

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?

Three. Born in October 2011, Ryan was three when the channel launched in March 2015; Forbes ranked him the highest-paid YouTuber for 2018, 2019 and 2020.

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

Walmart launched the Ryan's World line exclusively in August 2018; the franchise later added Nickelodeon's Ryan's Mystery Playdate and a 2024 feature film.

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

JJ, the baby with the tuft of hair, stars alongside his siblings TomTom and YoYo; the channel was bought by Moonbug Entertainment in 2020.

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

2006. The channel was created on 1 September 2006 and run by Jay Jeon and his wife under names including ABC Kid TV before the 2018 rebrand to Cocomelon.

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

Emma Chamberlain launched Chamberlain Coffee in December 2019; that year Time listed her among the 25 most influential people on the internet for reinventing the vlog with jump cuts and on-screen text.

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

Louis Vuitton signed her as an ambassador in 2019 and took her to Paris Fashion Week; she added Cartier in 2022 and hosts the Anything Goes podcast.

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

Communicate only by public video. For all of 2007 the brothers gave up text-based contact and spoke to each other only through vlogs posted on alternating weekdays.

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

Nerdfighters. The name came from a 2007 video in which John misread an Aero Fighters arcade cabinet as 'Nerd Fighters'; the Greens went on to build Crash Course and SciShow.

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

VidCon began in 2010 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?

Viacom bought VidCon in February 2018; its successor Paramount Global sold the event on to the exhibitions firm Informa in 2024.

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

iPod's Dirty Secret. The stencil-and-spray-paint protest is credited with pushing Apple to add a battery-replacement programme; his HBO series The Neistat Brothers came in 2010.

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

CNN bought Beme in November 2016 for about $25 million and shut the unit down in early 2018; Neistat's Nike spot Make It Count had spent its whole budget on a trip around the world.

Logan Paul co-founded the drink brand Prime with which fellow YouTuber, whom he had twice fought in the ring?

KSI drew with Paul in 2018 and won the 2019 rematch before the two went into business together.

Which WWE title did Logan Paul win in November 2023?

United States Championship gold came in November 2023; he had signed with WWE in 2022, a year after his exhibition bout with Floyd Mayweather.

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

Mike Tyson, 58 at the time, lost on all three scorecards in a bout streamed live on Netflix to a reported 108 million viewers.

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

Bizaardvark. He played Dirk Mann on the Disney Channel sitcom until July 2017; that year's 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?

Ipsy launched as MyGlam in 2011 and was valued at more than $500 million by 2015; Phan had also been Lancôme's first video makeup artist.

Which viral 2007 YouTube clip sold as an NFT for about $760,000 in 2021?

Charlie Bit My Finger, the 2007 clip of brothers Harry and Charlie Davies-Carr, sold as an NFT for $760,999 in May 2021 after more than 880 million views.

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

Neal Mohan inherited a platform that by 2024 had 2.7 billion monthly users watching more than a billion hours a day.

Which tech reviewer has played elite ultimate frisbee for New York PoNY?

Marques Brownlee, better known as MKBHD, plays ultimate for New York PoNY and was on the roster that won the 2022 WFDF World Ultimate Club Championships.

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

North Carolina. The two met in a Buies Creek, North Carolina first-grade classroom in 1984, later studied engineering at NC State, and quit engineering jobs to build 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?

How to Be a Bawse, published in March 2017, debuted on the New York Times bestseller list; 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?

Nuclear medicine. Higa, a judo black belt from Hilo, Hawaii, left UNLV's nuclear medicine programme to focus on the channel he had started in 2006 lip-syncing with Sean Fujiyoshi.

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 platform?

Mixer. Ninja signed an exclusive deal with Microsoft's streaming service on 1 August 2019; Mixer shut down in July 2020 and he later returned to Twitch.

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

Girl Online sold 78,109 copies in its first week in November 2014, a UK record for a debut novelist; two sequels followed and she later co-wrote The Magpie Society with Amy McCulloch.

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

Nerdy Nummies, launched in 2011, bakes pop-culture-themed treats and made Pansino one of the best-known cooking creators on the site; The Nerdy Nummies Cookbook followed in 2015.

MrBeast recreated which Netflix survival drama in 2021, with 456 players chasing a $456,000 prize?

Squid Game creator Hwang Dong-hyuk reacted positively to recreations of his series, even as one review said the video missed the show's anti-capitalist message.

PewDiePie and his wife Marzia left England in May 2022 to settle permanently in which country?

Japan had been the plan since a 2018 trip. The couple bought a home there in 2019, but a burglary and pandemic entry rules delayed the move.

Logan and Jake Paul both built their first followings in 2013 on which short-video app?

Vine made Logan Paul one of its most influential figures by 2015, and Jake had 5.3 million followers there when Twitter shut the app down.

Markiplier's 2014 Let's Plays earned him the nickname "King of" which indie horror game series?

Five Nights at Freddy's had been out just five days when Markiplier posted his first playthrough, which became his most-viewed Let's Play.

Which martial arts series premiered on YouTube Red in 2018 before moving to Netflix two years later?

Cobra Kai continues the Karate Kid rivalry decades later. Its first two seasons launched as YouTube originals before the series left for Netflix in 2020.

On which YouTube show does Sean Evans interview celebrities over a platter of chicken wings?

Hot Ones opens with Evans's tagline, "The show with hot questions, and even hotter wings," and ends on a sauce rated above 2,000,000 Scoville units.

Which YouTuber created Game Theory in 2011, then spun off Film Theory, Food Theory and Style Theory?

MatPat, real name Matthew Patrick, narrated most of the videos himself until he stepped down as regular host in March 2024.

Which singer played YouTube's Filthy Frank and Pink Guy before quitting comedy for music in 2017?

Joji, born George Miller, also popularised the Harlem Shake meme. The craze helped turn Baauer's song of the same name into a commercial hit.

Which comedian behind Netflix's Inside began his career posting bedroom songs to YouTube in 2006?

Bo Burnham made Inside alone at home during the pandemic, with no crew or audience, and it won a Peabody Award.

Which streamer, born Darren Watkins Jr., made his support for Cristiano Ronaldo a running theme?

IShowSpeed finally met Ronaldo in Lisbon in June 2023, a year after releasing a tribute song titled "Ronaldo (Sewey)".

Which British Minecraft YouTuber topped the 2017 Forbes list of highest-paid YouTube stars?

DanTDM, real name Daniel Middleton, earned about $16.5 million that year. His channel began in 2012 as TheDiamondMinecart.

Mark Rober's 2018 bait parcels filmed package thieves while dousing them in fart spray and what?

Glitter gave the contraption its name, the glitter bomb. Later versions were used with authorities to track money mules working for scam call centres.

Which British YouTube group has staged its own charity football matches since 2016?

Sidemen started out in October 2013 as a Grand Theft Auto Online crew called The Ultimate Sidemen, three years before the first match.

Colleen Ballinger plays which comically talentless character, the star of Netflix's Haters Back Off?

Miranda Sings satirises bad but self-assured performers who film themselves singing for attention. Ballinger has posted as her since January 2008.

Which children's YouTuber began her Songs for Littles videos in 2019 after her son's speech delay?

Ms Rachel, a former preschool music teacher, modelled the videos on techniques used by her son's speech therapist. He did not say his first word until he was two.

Which children's character in an orange bow tie was created by US Air Force veteran Stevin John?

Blippi came to John after he saw his two-year-old nephew watching low-quality videos on YouTube and decided he could do better.

Which education nonprofit grew from online maths lessons a hedge fund analyst gave his cousin Nadia?

Khan Academy traces back to 2004, when Sal Khan tutored her over Yahoo's doodle notepad. He kept his finance job until late 2009.

Which fitness coach's lockdown PE lessons for children set a YouTube livestream record in 2020?

Joe Wicks drew over 950,000 live viewers on 24 March 2020, earning a Guinness World Record for the most-watched fitness workout stream on YouTube.

Which quartet featuring Keith Habersberger and Eugene Lee Yang left BuzzFeed in 2018?

The Try Guys took all rights to their brand with them when they went independent that June, having made their name testing things like raising toddlers.

Which teenager's viral 2011 song "Friday" led a Yahoo critic to ask if it was the worst ever?

Rebecca Black refused an offer to take the video down, saying she would not give the haters the satisfaction. She released a hyperpop remix ten years later.

Which YouTube co-founder created the site's first account and starred in its first video?

Jawed Karim opened the account, named simply "jawed", the same day he uploaded the clip. Years later he rewrote its description to protest against Google+ comment rules.

Two YouTube founders said the site was first conceived as a video version of what kind of website?

A dating service modelled on Hot or Not was the plan, and the founders offered women $100 on Craigslist to upload clips before opening the site to every kind of video.

What is the real name of Ninja, the Fortnite streamer who drew a record audience playing with Drake?

Tyler Blevins, born in a Detroit suburb, set a record of 635,000 concurrent viewers in March 2018 alongside Drake, Travis Scott and JuJu Smith-Schuster.

Lilly Singh posted comedy on YouTube from 2010 to 2019 under which superhero-style pseudonym?

Superwoman, styled IISuperwomanII, was dropped in August 2019, a month before Singh began hosting the NBC late-night show A Little Late.

PewDiePie's 2015 mobile game took its title from which gesture he made to close his videos?

Brofist fitted the way he called viewers "bros" and his fan base the Bro Army. The mobile game was PewDiePie: Legend of the Brofist.

Which YouTuber interviewed Barack Obama in 2016 and later hosted Nickelodeon's Double Dare revival?

Liza Koshy spoke to the president just before that year's election to encourage voter registration. Her Double Dare run earned a Daytime Emmy nomination.

Which video creator describes his seamlessly edited illusion clips as "digital sleight of hand"?

Zach King began in 2008 with a website teaching Final Cut Pro, set up because he could not find tutorials for the editing software online.

Which Brave Wilderness host has let a bullet ant and an executioner wasp sting him on camera?

Coyote Peterson started the animal education channel in 2014 and became known for the videos in which he takes a bite or sting on purpose.

Which animated science channel founded by Philipp Dettmer has a name meaning "in a nutshell"?

Kurzgesagt is German for "in a nutshell", or literally "shortly said". The Munich studio is known for its flat, minimalist animation.

Which singer's 2004 live television incident, hard to find online afterwards, helped inspire a YouTube co-founder?

Janet Jackson's halftime wardrobe malfunction and footage of the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami were both hard to find online, which suggested a video-sharing site.

Which science channel's host won a $10,000 bet with a UCLA professor over a wind-powered car?

Veritasium host Derek Muller showed the propeller-driven car really could sail downwind faster than the wind, and the winnings became prizes for a science communication contest.

Which Canadian tech YouTuber presented videos for retailer NCIX before founding his own company?

Linus Sebastian shot his first NCIX videos on a camera borrowed from the son of the company's president, and launched Linus Tech Tips there in 2008.

Which cooking channel did Andrew Rea build by recreating dishes from film and TV?

Binging with Babish borrows the name of The West Wing's Oliver Babish, which Rea also uses as his alias. A companion series, Basics with Babish, covers traditional recipes.

Which channel's "Everything Wrong With" videos nitpick a movie against a running on-screen counter?

CinemaSins usually charges one sin per flaw, but it once fined Home Alone 2 a billion at a stroke for Donald Trump's cameo.

Which musician and animator made the viral 2017 video "History of the Entire World, I Guess"?

Bill Wurtz has been publishing music and videos since 2002. Accepting a Shorty Award for Best in Weird in 2016, his whole speech was "Thank you."

Which channel, called ChilledCow until 2021, streams study beats 24/7 beside an animated student?

Lofi Girl is a French channel that began streaming lo-fi beats in 2017, and the endlessly studying character in its livestream has an official name: Jade.

Which band's single-take routine on eight treadmills became a YouTube hit in 2006 and won a Grammy?

OK Go left the finished video on the singer's laptop for about a year, worried about being pigeonholed as a goofy dancing band, before uploading it.

Which British YouTube duo began presenting a weekly BBC Radio 1 request show in January 2013?

Dan and Phil, Dan Howell and Phil Lester, met by messaging online. Lester had been posting videos since March 2006, over three years before Howell's first.

Which YouTuber crossed America in 2022 on funds grown from one penny, which he delivered to MrBeast?

Ryan Trahan paid his way with odd jobs such as mowing lawns and walking dogs, and the month-long series raised $1.38 million for Feeding America.

Arin Hanson and JonTron created which Let's Play series in 2012, with Dan Avidan joining in 2013?

Game Grumps centres on its hosts playing video games together. Jon Jafari left in 2013 to concentrate on his own web series.

Which streamer left Twitch for YouTube in January 2020 and won a Game Award later that year?

Valkyrae averaged only about 1,500 concurrent viewers in her first three months on YouTube, before her Among Us streams sent the audience soaring.

Which esports group began in 2010 as a trio of Call of Duty trickshot snipers on YouTube?

FaZe Clan debuted as FaZe Sniping, and its trickshot montage series ILLCAMS became the most popular on the channel.

Markiplier and Jacksepticeye launched which gamer-focused clothing line together in October 2018?

Cloak was aimed squarely at the gaming community, and streamer Pokimane joined as a partner and creative director in 2020.

Which Swedish inventor of deliberately useless robots turned a Tesla Model 3 into a pickup truck?

Simone Giertz named the pickup Truckla and paired the build video with a parody advert carrying the slogan "Available nowhere."

Which former plumber from Stamford, England, built a working hoverbike and an underground bunker?

Colin Furze became a plumber after leaving school at 16 and began uploading in 2007. His builds also include a 71 mph mobility scooter.

Which channel is run by Levy Rozman, an international master dubbed the internet's chess teacher?

GothamChess creator Levy Rozman began streaming in 2018 with only 10 followers. His 2023 book How to Win at Chess became a New York Times bestseller.

YouTube's first headquarters sat above a restaurant of what kind in San Mateo, California?

A pizzeria and a second restaurant sat below the start-up's first office. In October 2006 the company moved to San Bruno.

Which musician co-created Epic Rap Battles of History, playing John Lennon in its first battle?

Nice Peter, real name Peter Shukoff, shot each of the first three battles on a $50 budget after the idea proved too hard to stage as an improv show.

Which 2005 Saturday Night Live rap about a Narnia matinee went viral via bootleg YouTube uploads?

Lazy Sunday aired the same week the site left beta, and its overnight internet stardom helped put the fledgling YouTube on the map.

Which YouTube series stars the lab-coated British duo Gavin Free and Dan Gruchy?

The Slow Mo Guys wear lab coats to play up the science angle. Gruchy's has a torn-off right sleeve because the first coats ordered were too small for him.