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Todd Bryanton’s music used to reach only a couple dozen of his friends, but that’s a different story now thanks to the video-sharing giant YouTube.
The first video on YouTube — entitled “Me at the Zoo” — was uploaded to the platform 14 years ago Tuesday. After starting from humble beginnings, YouTube now reaches around 1.9 billion people every month.
Bryanton remembers when getting together with his friends to watch videos was a very social affair.
“At the time I never really thought much of it,” said Bryanton. “Anytime I had band practices or (was) just hanging out with friends, we would sit down and that was the thing. You would bring up whatever you’d seen that day.”
Bryanton, whose account is called “Lil Deuce Deuce,” decided to begin uploading videos and music to the platform after some encouragement from his friends 11 years ago. One of his more popular videos — Beep, Beep, I’m a Sheep — has garnered more than 33 million views since it was first uploaded two years ago.
“If you had told me 10 years ago that (those were) the numbers I would’ve reached, I would’ve thought that was international pop star numbers,” said Bryanton, who has about 84 million views on his channel. “I think I’m like 50,000 most-viewed on the platform.”
But where is the future of the site? Bryanton said he has seen a shift away from the short, viral-type videos towards longer, produced pieces.
“That’s a conscious choice by YouTube where they promote longer things,” he said. “I haven’t necessarily followed the trend of YouTube because I still put out very short, animated videos.”
Another change that has come to the platform has been more regulation over what gets put onto the site. While YouTube was described as a “wild west” when it first began, Bryanton said things like release forms for actors and legal clearances for music are becoming more common.
While it has gone through many changes since it first began, YouTube continues to be a social community that includes everyone from people searching for nature documentaries to people just wanting to view some cat videos.