This website unearths YouTube’s lost and forgotten iPhone clips

The “IMG_0001” website features a frame with an old TV static effect and a floating retro Panasonic remote that you can click to start watching random YouTube videos from over a decade ago that were recorded and uploaded from devices such as 2010’s iPhone 4.

As described on the site, there was a novel (at the time) “Send to YouTube” feature on iPhones between 2009 and 2012 that let you upload recordings directly from your iPhone for anyone to see — which often aren’t accompanied by any text descriptions.

Each video is titled something like IMG_XXXX, which follows the default naming conventions of recordings from iPhones (and many, many cameras).

If this site is ringing a bell, you’re probably thinking about a similar project called Astronaut from 2017. It had a similar idea to IMG_0001 where you watch original filename videos; however, Astronaut focused on videos that could be newly uploaded (with low view counts) and only showed small portions of each one unless you intervened.

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