YouTube Trivia Quiz: 18 Questions and answers about viral videos, creators, and YouTube history
We do watch a bit of YouTube. Not just for travel planning and cruise research, but also for everyday entertainment. For better or worse, YouTube gives space to that long tail of the internet that Chris Anderson wrote about back in 2004.
But how much do you actually know about the platform itself? Its history, the viral moments, and the technical changes that shaped it along the way?
Below are 18 YouTube trivia questions. They start fairly easy but get progressively harder as you go.
Find out the answer by clicking ‘Reveal Answer’.
1. What holiday was the YouTube domain registered on in 2005?
Reveal Answer
Valentine’s Day (February 14, 2005)
2. Which company bought YouTube in 2006 for $1.65 billion?
Reveal Answer
3. What video format launched in 2020 to compete with TikTok?
Reveal Answer
YouTube Shorts
4. What children’s song is currently the most viewed video on YouTube?
Reveal Answer
Baby Shark
5. What award does a channel receive when it reaches 100,000 subscribers?
Reveal Answer
The Silver Play Button
6. What was the first video ever uploaded to YouTube?
Reveal Answer
Me at the zoo
Photo by Szabo Viktor (from Unsplash)
7. Which Swedish gaming YouTuber once held the record for the most subscribers?
Reveal Answer
PewDiePie
8. Which 2012 music video became the first YouTube video to reach 1 billion views?
Reveal Answer
Gangnam Style by Psy
9. What is the name of YouTube’s subscription service that removes ads?
Reveal Answer
YouTube Premium
10. In 2009 YouTube encouraged users to upload videos upside down as part of an April Fools’ prank. What did the site claim had happened?
Reveal Answer
The entire website had been flipped upside down.
11. What was YouTube’s original slogan?
Reveal Answer
Broadcast Yourself
12. Name one of the three founders of YouTube besides Jawed Karim.
Reveal Answer
Chad Hurley or Steve Chen
Photo by charlesdeluvio (from Unsplash)
13. Which viral video features a child after dental surgery saying “Is this real life?”
Reveal Answer
David After Dentist
14. What is the maximum video length allowed for verified YouTube accounts?
Reveal Answer
12 hours
15. Which feature introduced in 2018 allows creators to charge fans monthly for perks?
Reveal Answer
Channel Memberships
16. In what U.S. city was YouTube originally founded?
Reveal Answer
San Mateo
17. Before becoming a video platform, YouTube was originally conceived as a website for sharing what kind of media?
Reveal Answer
Video dating profiles
18. Roughly how many hours of video are uploaded to YouTube every minute?
Reveal Answer
About 500 hours per minute (estimate)
