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Unboxing is the unpacking of new products, especially high tech consumer products, where the process is captured on video and uploaded to the web.
Yahoo Tech places the first Unboxing video to be for the Nokia E61 cellphone in 2006. According to Google Trends, searches for the term "unboxing" began to surface in the final quarter of 2006. Early unboxing videos were focused mainly either on gadgets or fashion items, however once the trend took off unboxing videos were available for, as Yahoo's Deb Amien put it "nearly every thing that is available for purchase" By 2014 the popularity of the videos were such that some companies had been known to upload unboxing videos for their own products, whilst others sent products to uploaders for free.
Some consider the popularity of this practice is due to the ability of showing the product exactly for what it is without any adulteration advertisers usually make around the product. Being able to see what one is getting can contribute to the decision process. Some users have tried to make these unboxings more interesting by adding special effects or doing them in different ways, such as underwater unboxing of a waterproof smartphone. The trend of unboxing videos continues to grow exponentially. As of 2017, there are numerous professionally made unboxing videos filmed with high-tech cameras and highly-skilled cinematographers such as Ultimate Unboxing (youtube channel) and British blogger Sophie Shohet. The unboxing has also been used as a form of humour. Most notably the YouTube comedian Mairou who unboxes weird unusual products in very unorthodox way YouTube: Banana Unboxing