We went viral in the early days of YouTube - here's how it's changed our lives

Metro

23-04-2025

Charlie and Harry are at university now studying law and business.
They're preparing to join the workforce, but you probably know them as the toddlers in one of the most viewed videos of all time.
They are the two children who accidentally went viral, after their dad tried to share a candid – hilarious – moment with family in the early days of YouTube.
Today is the 20th anniversary of the first ever video uploaded to the platform, Me at the Zoo, and since then there have been over 20,000,000,000,000 (yes, trillion) more.
The Davies-Carr family have been vloggers for most of that time, as their viral home video was uploaded just two years later, in May 2007.
'I made it public so that a couple of people could access it who wouldn't understand how to create an account,' dad-of-four Howard told Metro.
'Then a few months after that, I went into YouTube to delete it, thinking that everybody would have seen it. And it had had a huge number of views.'
Watching the number climb from tens of thousands into hundreds of millions was a surreal experience, that was 'alarming' at first.
'You think, 'well I've lost control'. I suppose I took the attitude, 'we'll just embrace what's happening and and see where it goes',' he said.
The brothers, now 18 and 21, say it's always been a part of their lives, but doesn't dominate it, given that they look very different now so are never recognised in the street.
At most, 'my mates might try and wind me up and tell someone,' Charlie told Metro.
They see the video as a net positive, and it has helped the family financially: it was sold it for £537,000 as an NFT in 2021.
But Charlie said he probably wouldn't share videos of his own future kids because 'that era is over'.
'It the video was posted now, I don't think it would be anywhere near as successful as it was,' he added.
Speaking from the family home near Windsor, his older brother Harry said: 'I don't know if it changed our lives because it happened when we were so young; we've grown up with it.
'It's funny to see it pop up, like it was on the Big Fat Quiz of the Year, and I sometimes hear it referenced when I'm watching a different video on YouTube. It's kind of a shock when it happens, like 'oh my god that's me'.'
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YouTube said that around 20 million videos are now uploaded every day, with around 3.5 billion daily likes from users on average last year.
The experience for creators now is vastly different to in the early days, before 'influencer' was a career choice.
Louise Pentland, part of the original 'Brit Crew' of superstar YouTubers, told Metro that she started off vlogging aged 24 with a camera perched on a laundry basket on her bed.
'When I started, you didn't make money off it – you just did it for fun,' she said.
Now 39 and with millions of followers across platforms, what started as a hobby has become a career, and both she and the platform have grown up.
YouTube was a 'small community of friends' when she started, she said: 'Now it's a large community of mainly friendly people, and those two things are different.'
Although many of her early videos are still online, there are some that she has made private, such as a disastrous attempt to craft pumpkins where she burnt her hand with hot glue.
'That video did very well, but I think mostly because I was being laughed at, not with,' she said.
Although most people didn't know much about YouTube in the early years, and those who did know tended to be young, her dad was actually the first person who got her into it, sending a video from make-up influencer Lauren Luke 'Panacea81', who he had seen a news article about.
'Ater a while she felt like more than just someone teaching me how to do makeup, but like an online friend. I felt really happy and comfortable watching her videos – she was such a comfort watch,' Louise said.
When she started making content herself, 'most people did not understand', and she's not even sure she understood herself.
'I think people thought it was just a bit odd or a bit niche, whereas now everybody knows about YouTube,' she said. 'It felt like the people that did know were this like little secret club of people that knew about this fun, new, cool thing.'
Those creating content now have to vie with algorythms dictating what they see, with users served more and more videos similar to what they have already interacted with.
Jonti Picking, also known as Mr Weebl, misses the more random nature of what you could find on your screen in the early YouTube days.
'It used to be just little nerdy kids in rooms and weirdos making cartoons that you would never commission, but it was really interesting because of that,' he said.
Those growing up online in the 2000s would not have been able to escape his repetitive viral tune Badger Badger Badger. But would it have appeared on screens if it was uploaded today?
'The early days were a lot more quirky and varied,' he told Metro. 'A lot of the things on the front page were handpicked.
'I would say quality in general is vastly up for most things [now], but you just don't find them as easily. I'd love to see a bit more curation, but that's me. I'm an old fuddy-duddy.'
The animator and musician based in Bristol is turning 50 next month, and now has two children in their teens, who are less than impressed by his viral fame.
'When they were young, I was kind of cool to them, I think, because their friends would join in with the songs,' he said.
'But now it's just, 'Shut up, Dad! Go away! Close the door.' They weren't even born when badgers came out. It's insane.
'They're both quite creative, but they've got really into musicals, which is like musical kryptonite to me. It winds me up endlessly. Here's me making filthy, bassy tunes, and there's 'Defying Gravity' and all this downstairs. Where did I go wrong?'
He says he had an inkling that the song could take off after finishing the animation in about three days: 'I remember showing it to some people I was working with at the time, going, 'This is going to be big', somewhat jokingly.' More Trending
'Then I went away after posting it and came back, and it had just gone huge overnight.
Unbelievably, the lyrics 'badger' was only ever meant to be a placeholder, inspired by the song Saturday Night by Whigfield, but he thankfully realised it worked the way it was.
Even if it may sometimes be annoying to be defined by the words BadgerBadgerBadgerBadger, he's grateful for the song's success because it has allowed him to keep doing what he loves.
'It's been great; it's been a career,' he said. 'Not just this, obviously. But you know, from badgers, many other things sprung forth.
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