As the video below explains, Google-owned video sharing service YouTube has been nothing but a contest to find the best video, and the 8-year-long submission period is finally closing tonight.

Since so many submissions have been received (literally millions) YouTube will go dark for a decade to give thousands of judges 10 years to go through all the uploaded videos and declare one winner, which will be the site's only video  YouTube relaunches in 2023.

"We are so close to the end," Tom Liston, communications director at YouTube, said in today's April 1 video.

"Tonight at midnight, YouTube.com will no longer be accepting entries. After eight amazing years, it's finally time to review everything that has been uploaded to our site and begin the process of selecting a winner."

More than a billion people now use YouTube each month, with Google's YouTube team noting that nearly one out of every two people on the internet visits the website.

Check out the cameo-filled video in full below and if that's not enough to whet your appetite for April 1 news, you can also read about Facebook's plans to link surveillance footage to users' timelines.