The Strange Roots

YouTube 📼

YouTube, the video-sharing service, is a portmanteau of the words you (because the content is generated by you - the user), and tube, an old slang word for television.

Founded by PayPal employees Chad Hurley, Steve Chen, and Jawed Karim, they initially called the service "Tune In, Hook Up" but they opted for YouTube, instead, activating the domain name www.youtube.com on 14th February 2005.

Root: The term tube from the Latin tubus meaning 'pipe or tube', became a slang term for televisions from at least 1959 (possibly earlier) when cathode-ray tubes were used to produce the images.

Sources: YouTube's History and its impact on the internet