For those of us who've been on the internet for decades, today is a big milestone: the 20th anniversary of the first video uploaded to YouTube. That happened way back on April 23, 2005, only about a year and a half before Google made the shrewd move of purchasing the site. That first video is the all-time classic 19-second clip "Me at the zoo," the kind of video that came to define early YouTube. It's grainy, short and has no production values to speak of. Fast forward a few decades and YouTube has no peer in terms of its sheer volume of audiovisual content —the company says that a mind-boggling 20 billion videos) have been uploaded in the last 20 years, and 20 million are updated daily.

With all that in mind, Engadget's staff put their heads together to pick out the videos that have meant the most to them over the years. Not surprisingly, there's some weird stuff here, a lot of it from the early days of the platform. Apparently the stuff that really resonates with us isn't polish or production, but the raw, oddball stuff that couldn't have existed anywhere else. 

Ambient Renders

I test a whole bunch of portable batteries for Engadget. A power bank can refill a dead smartphone in one to two hours, but thanks to annoying technology “advancements” it takes around 20 hours to drain a phone again. I’m constantly playing YouTube videos on my tester handsets with the screen brightness cranked all the way up to make them die faster (these poor phones). My favorite videos to use are from Ambient Renders. Each one is eight or so hours of painstakingly rendered, mostly nighttime views from the windows of fancy lofts in modern-day big cities, cozy bedrooms of the distant past and sci-fi futurescapes. The soundtracks are soft rain, lonesome wind, crackling fires, distant thunder and the rumble of passing transport pods.

I often return to a Warm Cozy Cabin With a Relaxing Fire and Gentle Wind — a candle-lit bedroom with huge windows overlooking snow-covered pines, with a couple of mugs steaming in the corner. The subtle movements and details really come to life when you play them on a TV. There are a ton of these types of videos on YouTube and, lately, the creator has taken to adding “not made with AI” disclaimers to the video descriptions. It’s plain to see these are made with love and skill. The intricacy is stunning and even the sci-fi views are anchored in realism. — Amy Skorheim, senior reporter

Canadian, Please | gunnarolla & Julia Bentley

I was trying to remember the first YouTube video I was obsessed with and honestly couldn't tell you. Between communitychannel, Jake and Amir, Michelle Phan, Wong Fu Productions and many more, I have too many likes and faves to count. But I can tell you that I've been jamming to Gunnorolla's "Canadian, Please" since before it became cool to want to be Canadian. This certified bop was something I replayed over and over; I've memorized the lyrics and the song haunts me in my dreams, too. My more modern favorites change every month, but I currently adore CinemaSins, Scary Interesting, Wilko Rehashed, Psychology in Seattle and The School of Life. Oh and also, don't go looking for my channel from when I was a regular vlogger in the 2000s. Don't. — Cherlynn Low, managing editor

Carl Lewis National Anthem Fail

YouTube isn’t just for watching new videos of celebrities embarrassing themselves. You can also revisit humiliations from way before the video site’s inception!

Take this spectacular(ly bad) national anthem performance by Olympic sprinter Carl Lewis. Ahead of a 1993 regular-season NBA matchup between the Chicago Bulls and New Jersey Nets, the gold medalist stepped on the court to demonstrate the vocal talent we were deprived of as he wasted his prime years racing.

This video only includes snippets of Lewis’ belting (as in whipping listeners with a belt) rendition. But you still get his overly embellished opening note, self-aware “Uh oh!” after making a sound you’d expect from an animal being stepped on and an (ultimately unfulfilled) promise to make up for it.

As a bonus, this version includes SportsCenter anchor Charlie Steiner’s inability to keep his composure after the clip rolls. That’s followed by his Dad Joke-worthy commentary that Francis Scott Off-Key wrote Lewis’ rendition. — Will Shanklin, contributing reporter

Dog of Wisdom

It's almost 10 years later and I still reference this video every couple weeks. I can't offer higher praise than that. — Anna Washenko, contributing reporter

Food Wishes

One of the great things about YouTube, to this day, is the massive number of tutorial videos. I’ve used it to learn how to tie a tie, record music, put together furniture and where to dispose of that furniture when it’s given up the ghost. It also taught me how to cook. This is primarily thanks to one man. He goes by Chef John, but his channel is called Food Wishes. 

I’m fairly sure he’s the very first cook to capitalize on the platform, as he’s been making recipe videos pretty much since the beginning. This spaghetti with clam sauce tutorial is over 18 years old. I chose this particular video because I remember a trio of occasions in my life where I whipped out this recipe to amaze friends, family and (gasp) would-be romantic partners. His simple, charming and no-nonsense approach to cooking has always clicked with me, and I’m not alone. He has over four million followers on the platform and still cranks out videos to this day. His channel is a great reminder of how useful YouTube can actually be. — Lawrence Bonk, contributing reporter

John Frusciante - 09 - New Dawn Fades

My favorite YouTube video, the one I return to year after year, is a bootleg of the Red Hot Chili Pepper’s John Frusciante playing Joy Division’s “New Dawn Fades” at a solo show in Amsterdam at the start of the century. Say what you will about his main band, but John Frusciante is easily one of the greatest living guitarists, and this video — shot in 2001 and uploaded to YouTube less than a year after the platform went online in 2005 — is the perfect showcase of his many talents as a musician.

The footage is grainy, like so many videos from the era, but what counts is you can hear nearly every nuance of his performance. With his beloved Martin 00-15 acoustic guitar, Frusciante plays two melodies at the same time in his trademark syncopated style, all the while singing Ian Curtis’ lyrics with so much emotion.

As a teenager, Frusciante’s performance inspired me to no end. I spent countless summer hours trying to learn and emulate his playing style. In 2006, I even bought an issue of Guitar World magazine because it came with a DVD that included an interview with Frusciante and a lesson from the man himself on how to play "Under the Bridge". I probably should have known someone would upload that video to YouTube. It would have saved me a few bucks.

Looking back at my favorite video all these years later, it captures what’s best about YouTube. You can find nearly every performance in music recording history. Frusciante’s performance of "New Dawn Fades" could have easily disappeared with the passage of time. Instead, it will now exist as long as YouTube does, waiting to inspire someone else. — Igor Bonifacic, senior reporter

Lenny Kravitz - Fly Away (lyrics)

YouTube is home to an endless stream of poignant art, thought-provoking video essays and open windows to other people’s lives. More than that, though, it’s home to a lot of really dumb shit. Most of that shit is bad, as forgettable as it is lazy. But when someone puts in the work to make their dumb idea as dumb as possible, when they are enlightened by just how dumb their idea could be... that’s when the magic happens.

This Lenny Kravitz “remix” by all-around web artist Neil Cicierega — which turns the funk rock hit into an ode to dragonflies and having sex with candy bars, all while aping a “my first Windows XP slideshow” aesthetic — is a prime example of the “good dumb” I’m talking about. It is completely of the internet, something that could only result from one weirdo out there with a silly idea and some video editing software. It is so stupid, but also inspired, so it always works for me. — Jeff Dunn, senior reporter

Rancid Stool - Low Music video

Damn, who is that handsome young man having the worst day of his life in glorious 280p? Oh wait, that would be me.

Way back in the day, my buds and I made a music video for a Foo Fighters song for a contest. Needless to say, we didn't win, but we had an absolute blast all the same. Making something silly with your friends is really fun. Who could have imagined?

Some [mumbles] years later, the video is still one of my favorite things I've ever done. Yes, the editing stinks (my bad), it doesn't make a whole lot of sense narratively and the name of our would-be production company is very regrettable.

Still, I'm really proud of what we put together. Every time I watch it, I get the urge to start making fun videos again. Maybe I’ll actually do that someday.

P.S. Screw you and your magnificent mustache forever, Chad Sexington. —Kris Holt, contributing reporter

Shining Movie Trailer Parody

In the age of AI, fake movie trailers have become something of a spam epidemic on YouTube. But as someone who distinctly remembers swapping video files to friends and coworkers via email with Quicktime or AVI files attached — yes, it was exactly the bandwidth and security nightmare it sounds like — I still rank this hand-edited Shining remix near the top of my YouTube Mount Rushmore. The romcom take on Kubrick's horror classic dates back to at least 2005, but it seems to get rediscovered by new fans every few years, and rightly so — it's a gem. — John Falcone, executive editor

Star Trek: Tik Tok

Lots of people have made music videos out of unexpected crossovers like this, but Star Trek: Tik Tok still stands out to me as the best. Every clip from the original 1960s series is paired to perfection with the lyrics, and Captain Kirk is a weirdly fitting analogue for Kesha's late 2000s party girl.

When I watch it now, I think this video captures the scrappy ethos of what it meant to go viral during the early days of YouTube. It was about creativity, not content creators. People were making weird and funny shit just for the heck of it. Every now and then you'd stumble on a video that resonated and it lived in your head rent-free for years. And what can I say, I still think this track is a banger. — A.W.

We Like The Moon

The first YouTube video I saw that left me totally agog at what the human mind is capable of was "We Like the Moon." I didn’t have a TV at the time so had no idea Quiznos had used the concept in their commercials. When I saw it on my friend's computer in 2006 or so, I was coming at it fresh. I remember a giddiness rising in my soul and a goofy smile plastering my face. It felt like we were living in a world of limitless creativity and possibility where fun was a guiding principle and “good” didn’t mean access to funding, expensive equipment, technical prowess, or even a decent voice. My partner and I sang it, and still sing it, whenever the moon, marmots, chopsticks or zeppelins are mentioned. Now, I realize strangely proportioned, animal-like monstrosities raving off-key about nonsense is old hat at this point. But I will never forget when this was first played for me. — A.S.

Where the Hell is Matt? 2008

This is the third of Matt Harding's videos of himself dancing badly in various scenic locations around the world, and the first in which he encouraged bystanders to dance with him — equally badly, with some exceptions. I have no defenses against large groups of people doing the same thing simultaneously in multiple locations.

Oddly specific, I know, but in a society obsessed with dividing and categorizing, it reminds me of our common humanity. This video never fails to bring a tear to my eye, from the subtle political statements (Tel Aviv and East Jerusalem were not placed right next to each other by accident) to the sheer obvious joy of everybody involved. I even like the music. — Sam Rutherford, senior reporter

Correction, April 23, 2025, 3:39PM ET: This story originally said that 20 trillion videos have been uploaded to YouTube; the correct figure is 20 billon. We apologize for the error.

Facebook acquired Instagram in 2012 for $1 billion, but tensions between Mark Zuckerberg and the app’s founders persisted for years afterward. On Tuesday, Instagram’s former CEO and cofounder Kevin Systrom took the stand in Meta’s antitrust trial in Washington, D.C. and offered a firsthand account of how Zuckerberg viewed the photo-sharing app as a “threat” to Facebook.

Systrom, who ran Instagram until 2018, said that Zuckerberg slowed hiring and other investments into Instagram despite its success. Zuckerberg, Systrom testified, "believed we were a threat to their growth," and as a result "was not investing" in the photo-sharing app, according to testimony reported by The New York Times. As The Times notes, Instagram had only a fraction of the employees as Facebook even after reaching 1 billion users. "As the founder of Facebook, he felt a lot of emotion around which one was better, meaning Instagram or Facebook," Systrom reportedly said. 

Tensions between Instagram’s founders and Zuckerberg over company resources have been previously reported, but Systrom’s testimony is the first time he’s publicly spoken in detail about the issues that ultimately led him to resign from the company. On the stand Tuesday, Systrom said that Zuckerberg “believed we were hurting Facebook’s growth,” according to Bloomberg.

Facebook’s acquisition of Instagram is central to the FTC’s case against Meta. The government has argued that Meta’s purchase of WhatsApp and Instagram were anticompetitive and that the social media company should be forced to divest the businesses. Systrom’s testimony comes a week after Zuckerberg took the stand and defended Meta’s $1 billion Instagram acquisition. However, a 2018 email from Zuckerberg that surfaced earlier in the trial showed that the Facebook founder was aware as early as 2018 that he could be forced to spin off the services into independent entities.

Wheel of Time is getting a new video game adaptation. The popular fantasy book series has already seen an imagining for the small screen with an Amazon Prime Video series that is currently airing its third season. Now iwot Studios, which has a hand in creating the Amazon show, is launching a new game studio to create a AAA open-world RPG set in the same fictional universe.

iwot brought in Craig Alexander to helm its new video game studio. Alexander has held management and leadership roles at game operations including Warner Bros. Entertainment, Activision, EA and Sierra On-Line. According to Variety, the studio is projecting a three-year development for the game, which seems pretty ambitious considering the it's still hiring team leads. iwot is also behind a planned live action movie as well as an animated feature film set within the same world as Wheel of Time. According to iwot Studios CEO Rick Selvage, the company will have "a lot of continuity in regards to how we approach our transmedia strategy" across the different projects.

This isn't the first time Robert Jordan's books have been source material for a game. Legend Entertainment released a first-person shooter based on Wheel of Time in 1999, and it's still available to play on modern hardware thanks to the preservation efforts at GOG.

One of the worst-kept secrets in games is now completely out in the open. It's true, Bethesda has been shepherding along a remaster of The Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion with the help of external developer Virtuos. The publisher formally revealed the remaster on Tuesday. Never mind that screenshots leaked on Virtuous' website last week.

You can play it right now as the game has landed on PC (via Steam and the Xbox App for Windows PC), Xbox Series X/S and PS5. Since this is a project from Microsoft-owned Bethesda, Oblivion Remastered is on Game Pass. The base Oblivion Remastered game includes the the Knights of the Nine and Shivering Isles expansions. There are extras available, such as bonus quests, of course, horse armor DLC (that was a whole thing, trust me). A deluxe edition has these, and other gear, bundled in.

As you might expect, Bethesda and Virtuos (a long-time partner of the publisher) have given the 2006 original a huge visual overhaul, updating the look of the RPG for modern systems. The remaster, which was built using Unreal Engine 5, has 4K Ultra HD graphics and it can run at framerates of 60 fps. Virtuos says it used the same base mesh system for for every race of characters. As such, the developers say they were able to make the lip-sync system more effective regardless of the characters' facial features. There's plenty of new dialogue too, including unique voice lines for all races.

The user interface, lighting effects, landscapes, audio and, of course, gameplay have all been refined here. The levelling system has been given an overhaul too, with the developers taking cues from both the original game and Skyrim. Fans of third-person adventuring will be please to learn that perspective has been upgraded too — there's now a crosshair, for one thing. Bethesda is also promising additional autosaves, enhanced accessibility features and improvements to enemy scaling.

Bethesda is currently working on The Elder Scrolls 6, but that doesn't mean the studio has left the past behind entirely. Bethesda Game Studios head Todd Howard said in the announcement video that each chapter of The Elder Scrolls "tried to define role-playing games and open-world games for their generation." Oblivion, in particular, "was a real defining moment in the series and for how we make games as a studio," he added. "Every time we think about Oblivion, it's 'what if we could give that moment to everybody again?'"

If you think Just Dance would be a great addition to your library of virtual reality games and experiences, then mark this date: October 15. 2024. Ubisoft is launching Just Dance VR: Welcome to Dancity that day for the Meta Quest 2, Meta Quest Pro and Meta Quest 3. You'll be able to customize your avatars for the game and choose your own body shape, facial expression, skin color, hair and outfit. Once you're done creating a virtual version of yourself, you can enter the Dancity social hub to meet other players. 

You'll also have your own "apartment" in game, where you can dance with up to six players or do other interactive activities with the group, like play basketball. The game will let you send emote stickers to players who aren't in your friends list, but you can do voice chats with dancers who are. Welcome to Dancity features 360-degree environments and what Ubisoft describes as an "all-new gameplay with two-hand scoring."

You'll be able to dance to 25 hit and original songs at launch, including Don't Stop Me Now by Queen, Bad Liar by Selena Gomez, Starships by Nicki Minaj and Call Me Maybe by Carly Rae Jepsen. As UploadVR notes, the game was supposed to be exclusively available to Pico headsets. However, after the ByteDance-owned company laid off a big portion of its workforce, Ubisoft started working with a new partner (Meta) to develop the game.

Andrea Baroni’s Halfway to Dawn is unbelievably bleak for a game you can play from start to finish in about 10 minutes. I mean that as a compliment; it’s the best horror experience I’ve had on the Playdate yet.

As someone who tends to gravitate towards all things spooky, one of the things I’ve been most interested in as I explore what’s out there for Playdate is seeing how developers will make horror work for the weird little handheld. Halfway to Dawn takes a blended approach: in the first half, it’s a text-based narrative game where you’re scavenging for resources and readying yourself for the long night ahead; in the second, it’s an all-out fight for your life against an onslaught of eldritch creatures.

Halfway to Dawn wastes no time in setting a mood of desolation and impending doom, beginning with dialogue from our protagonist about feeling “as lifeless as these scattered remains of humanity” in a city overtaken by some unnamed terror. During the narrative portion of the game, you must choose among different locations to visit — the mall, pharmacy, gun store and a house — so you can hopefully find things like first aid kits, guns, ammo and traps. But there’s no telling whether each of these trips will be successful.

Andrea Baroni/Cyberleaf Studio

You might find a box of shotgun shells but never get your hands on a shotgun to actually use them. You might even get hurt while scavenging. There is also the option to rest, which will fill up your health bar (while you’ll start with full health on Easy mode, Hard will start you with two out of the six health points already depleted). But an hour will pass after each selection, and you have to stay conscious of the time. The clock starts at 6PM, and once it strikes 1AM, you’ll be forced to go out and defend yourself against the monsters until dawn.

At this point, the game becomes a top-down shooter — and depending on how you fared with resources, a pretty challenging one at that. Monsters will be closing in on you from all sides, some of them harder to take down than others, and you can only replenish ammo and first aid kits from your finite supply at set breaks marking the passage of one hour. If you run out before then, you’ll have no choice but to try and fight off the monsters with a knife, which you can swing using the crank. That’s about as effective as you’d think it is.

Halfway to Dawn is a very, very short game, but it really had me sweating on some runs. It’s a fun one to keep coming back to, since the randomness of resource collection makes for a different experience each time. And the tension of it all is perfectly rounded out by a synth-heavy soundtrack (available on Bandcamp), which could be right out of an ‘80s B-horror movie. If creepy is your thing, this is definitely a game to check out. Halfway to Dawn is on the Playdate Catalog and itch.io for $5.

After years of teasing its arrival, Xbox has finally announced a release window for the upcoming Fable reboot. The game is slated to hit Xbox Series X/S and PC in 2025, and will be available on Xbox Game Pass from day one. The company dropped a new trailer for Fable during the Xbox Games Showcase on Sunday. The game, which is being developed by Playground Games, was first announced with a teaser back in 2020.

Xbox is billing it as “a new beginning” for the series. The new Fable focuses on a washed-up ex-hero named Humphry, who we see in the latest trailer. He’ll be “forced out of retirement when a mysterious figure from his past threatens Albion's very existence.” In our last glimpse at the game, released during last year’s Summer Game Fest, we were introduced to a character named Dave, who is voiced by Richard Ayoade. The new trailer gives us a bit more of a look at some in-game footage and doubles down on the offbeat tone of the previous teasers.

We'll still have to wait a while for it to actually be released, but at least now there's a timeframe we can cling to. 

Catch up on all of the news from Summer Game Fest 2024 right here!

Mixtape is a coming-of-age story about the reality-bending adventures of three teenage friends on their final night of high school, featuring a soundtrack of classic punk and alternative hits. It's due to hit Xbox Series X/S and PC in 2025, and it'll be available day-one on Game Pass.

Mixtape follows three friends on their way to their final high school party, as they relive their glory days to the tunes of a perfectly curated playlist. Their memories appear in dreamlike sequences, featuring songs by Iggy Pop, Siouxsie and the Banshees, Joy Division, Devo, The Smashing Pumpkins and other old-school hit makers.

The main trio in Mixtape provide plenty of teenage sass in the game's reveal trailer, and its art style feels like something between stop-motion and cel-shaded cinematics. It's a welcoming, stylish world. The Mixtape microsite includes the mantra, "Skate. Party. Avoid the law. Make out. Sneak out. Hang out." Sounds like high school to me.

Mixtape comes from Beethoven & Dinosaur, the studio behind the musical adventure The Artful Escape and fronted by Australian rockstar Johnny Galvatron. It's published by Annapurna Interactive.

Catch up on all of the news from Summer Game Fest 2024 right here!

It's been a long, long time since we learned that a Perfect Dark reboot was in the works, and there are finally some fresh signs of life. A gameplay trailer was shown during the Xbox Games Showcase, though there's no release date or window as yet.

Xbox is billing the reboot as a "first-person secret agent thriller in a near-future world" that includes immersive sim and stealth-action elements. Based on this first look, co-developers The Initiative and may have nailed the brief. 

The clip shows Joanna Dark dropping into a near-future version of Cairo in search of a bad guy who possesses a radioactive device. She's able to capture goons' voice prints to open voice-activated door locks, and she can kick off walls to clamber up drain pipes and gain extra distance for jumps. Along with blasting enemies with guns, Joanna has some hand-to-hand combat skills too.

According to an Xbox Wire blog post, you'll have a range of traversal abilities and gadgets at your disposal, so you'll be able to choose how to complete missions. I'm just a little bummed that there was no sign of a laptop gun. 

The blog post also notes that "at the widest level, Perfect Dark will be a single-player experience." That could be a hint that there will be multiplayer modes too. I have my fingers crossed for that, as the original Perfect Dark was a better multiplayer shooter than Goldeneye 007.

Catch up on all of the news from Summer Game Fest 2024 right here!

Paramount+ just dropped the full trailer for its upcoming animated TMNT series, Tales of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and it looks like a lot of fun. The show, a spinoff of last year’s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem, will see a slew of actors from the movie return to their roles, including Micah Abbey as Donatello, Shamon Brown Jr. as Michelangelo, Nicolas Cantu as Leonardo, Brady Noon as Raphael and Ayo Edebiri as April O’Neil. It’s scheduled to be released on the streaming platform August 9.

In Tales of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, the brothers find themselves up against the villain Bishop (now depicted as a woman), who should be familiar to longtime fans of the franchise. After becoming separated by Bishop, they’ll have to stand on their own until they find each other to fight together again. The show will get 12 episodes, which will be available exclusively on Paramount+.