A reconstruction of the 2006 interface of YouTube , including its original video player and first upload, has been acquired by London’s Victoria and Albert Museum as an artifact of early internet culture.
Now on display at the museum’s South Kensington location, the recreated “watch” page lets visitors experience YouTube as it looked during its early Web 2.0 years. The reconstruction was produced with YouTube’s User Experience team using archived front-end code captured by the Internet Archive, along with the original Adobe Flash video player and the platform’s first video titled “Me at the Zoo.” Uploaded on April 24, 2005 by co-founder Jawed Karim, the 19-second clip became the starting point of YouTube’s casual, user-generated style that would later define the online video platform.
The recreated page includes familiar features such as rating buttons, sharing tools, and early advertising formats that shaped how users interacted with video online.
The reconstruction is part of the museum’s “Design 1900 – Now” gallery, alongside other digital artifacts like Flappy Bird and WeChat, reflecting growing efforts to preserve platforms that helped define everyday internet life.
YouTube was founded by Karim, Chad Hurley, and Steven Chen, and was acquired by Google in 2006 for $1.65 billion.
Frequently Asked Questions
The Victoria and Albert Museum exhibit features a functional reconstruction of YouTube’s 2006 watch page. It includes the original Adobe Flash video player, early Web 2.0 rating and sharing tools, original advertising formats, and the platform’s first video, “Me at the Zoo.”
The reconstruction was developed alongside YouTube’s User Experience team using archived front-end code preserved by the Internet Archive. Engineers restored the original Adobe Flash player framework and early page layouts to replicate how users interacted with digital video during the platform’s inaugural year.
The first video uploaded to YouTube is “Me at the Zoo,” a 19-second clip posted on April 24, 2005, by co-founder Jawed Karim. Filmed at the San Diego Zoo, the video established the casual, user-generated content model that came to define early online video.
The 2006 YouTube interface is on permanent display at the Victoria and Albert Museum in South Kensington, London. It sits within the “Design 1900 – Now” gallery, which documents significant modern visual, architectural, and digital design movements.
The V&A Museum preserves YouTube alongside other influential digital design artifacts, including the mobile game Flappy Bird and the messaging platform WeChat. These acquisitions reflect ongoing efforts by cultural institutions to archive software and platforms that transformed everyday communication.
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