Original YouTube page joins London museum collection

The Victoria & Albert Museum has acquired a reconstruction of YouTube’s original watchpage, offering the public a unique opportunity to "step back in time" to the dawn of online video. This significant acquisition brings a pivotal piece of digital history into the museum’s collection.

From 18 February, visitors will be able to view the recreated watchpage alongside the very first video ever uploaded to the platform: "Me at the zoo". This 19-second clip, featuring YouTube co-founder Jawed Karim, was posted on 23 April 2005 and is now a cornerstone of internet culture.

Neal Mohan, YouTube’s chief executive, emphasised the cultural weight of the acquisition. "By reconstructing the original 2005 watchpage, we aren’t just showing a video; we are inviting the public to step back in time to the beginning of a global, cultural phenomenon," he stated. "It is a proud moment to see this piece of digital history housed in the V&A where we hope it will inspire generations to come."

The seminal "Me at the zoo" video, filmed with a digital camera, has amassed nearly 380 million views and over 18 million likes. It marked a crucial turning point for user-generated content and fundamentally altered how media could be created and consumed. Furthermore, it served as an early blueprint for user interface design conventions, such as badges, rating buttons, and sharing features, which are now ubiquitous across digital platforms.

The first ever YouTube pagePA

Corinna Gardner, senior curator of design and digital at the V&A, highlighted the acquisition's historical resonance. "This snapshot of YouTube during the early days of web 2.0 marks an important moment in history of the internet and digital design," she explained. "The acquisition opens new storytelling opportunities for us to showcase and explore the ways in which the internet has shaped our world, from the birth of mainstream video sharing platforms through to today’s hyper visual world and the media and creator economy that go with it."

The V&A collaborated directly with YouTube to meticulously rebuild the platform’s design and user experience from 8 December 2006, identified as the oldest timestamp documented online via The Internet Archive. This reconstruction process itself will be explored in a dedicated mini-display at V&A East Storehouse, reinforcing the museum’s ongoing commitment to collecting and preserving digital design, which previously includes items like WeChat, Flappy Bird, EUKI, and the mosquito emoji.