It all began with a 19-second video: “Me at the Zoo.” Then, pioneers like iJustine, Smosh and Philip DeFranco started uploading and solidified “creator” as a dream job for millions around the world.
Video by video, creator by creator, YouTube became a driving force in culture. A place where trends are born, movements are ignited, and creativity is constantly redefined. Anyone with an idea — whether an individual, artist, studio, or brand — can become a creator here.
Today, YouTube is THE epicenter of culture. I’m not talking about forgettable fads or one-hit-wonders we scroll right past. I mean culture with a capital “C.” The place where day after day, year after year, the events, conversations and voices that define the moment break through and leave their mark.
But today isn’t just about celebrating the last 20 years, it’s about casting our vision for the next 20 — and why I believe the next revolution in creativity and brand building will be made on YouTube.
At YouTube, creators have been captivating us since the beginning. In the early days, they uploaded grainy, unscripted videos from their bedrooms. They honed their craft, built communities, and spawned a new creative class.
Today, creators are the startups of Hollywood.
Like most startups, these creators are reimagining the industry that inspired them and creating new jobs for writers, editors, actors and producers. Some are even building state-of-the-art studios.
Take Inoxtag, a creator here in France, who wanted the world to see him climb Mount Everest. He assembled a full crew — screenwriters,, graphic artists, and a lead director.
Last year, his debut documentary, Kaizen, premiered in both cinemas across the country and on YouTube, where it racked up 17 million views in less than 48 hours.
Now these creators are coming to the biggest screen in the house – the television. Viewers now watch over one billion hours of YouTube on their TVs every day… And for more than half of the top 100 most watched YouTube channels in the world, TV is their most watched screen.
With these audiences in mind, creators are serializing their shows and releasing them in HD, like The Broski Report, a weekly show celebrating pop culture.
Creators are pioneering the new TV… and it doesn’t look like the old TV.
When viewers tune in, they want to watch what matters to them, unconstrained by format, genre or style.
They want to experience the Grand Final of the Eurovision Song Contest, then watch past music performances by their favorite artists. They want to livestream the Cannes Film Festival alongside creators’ red carpet reactions and Palme D’or predictions. They want to watch highlights of the U.S. and France Olympic basketball matchup, followed by a two-hour podcast with a breakdown from NBA legends.
And let’s talk about podcasts, one of the most relevant formats driving culture today. On YouTube alone, one billion viewers are watching podcasts every month.
Rotten Mango, hosted by creator Stephanie Soo, gained over 2 million new subscribers in just a year after she began incorporating video. She’s now topping our new weekly YouTube podcast charts.
Creators clearly have huge cultural power… backed by the relationships they build with their communities of ride-or-die fans. These fandoms don’t just follow culture, they shape it.
And rather than just watching a video, fans put their own unique spin on it. Last fall, Glitch dropped the animated dark comedy series, The Amazing Digital Circus. The pilot episode alone racked up over 300 million views. But the response from fans went even more viral. The songs, memes and spinoff content they created about the show collectively generated 25 billion views.
Fandom itself is becoming a form of creative expression — everything from reaction videos to fan art and more. And one of the easiest ways to jump in is through short form video.
At YouTube, we’re seeing a huge uptick in the amount of people creating — and watching — Shorts.
Today, I’m excited to share a new milestone: YouTube Shorts are now averaging over 200 billion daily views!
One last, critical point about these communities of fans: they don’t just exist online. Fandoms that start on YouTube drive culture in the real world.
In 2013, a group of creators came together over a shared love of gaming, calling themselves the Sidemen. Today, they’re one of YouTube’s largest collectives with more than 150 million subscribers across their channels.
They’ve created their own merchandise lines, opened a physical store, established a fast-food chain, and more. Every year, they compete against other creators in the Sidemen Charity Match. This year, they sold out Wembley Stadium — just like Taylor Swift, Ed Sheeran and BTS.
This explosion of creativity—from fan-made content to real-world moments—proves that fandom is no longer just about consumption; it’s a powerful force steering culture.
Now there’s another important way that creators are showing us what the future looks like: AI.
Like startups, creators are among the earliest adopters and fastest movers when it comes to cutting-edge technology.
I am incredibly excited by the potential of AI tools to empower human creativity.
We’re already seeing this on YouTube. Veo is Google Deepmind’s video generation model which lets you create AI-generated backgrounds and video clips for Shorts. We’ve put this model into the hands of creators with Dream Screen. Last month, Google announced the newest model: Veo 3, which vastly improves video quality and incorporates audio.