South Korean singer and rapper Psy‘s culture-shifting “Gangnam Style” music video has gained 5 billion views on YouTube, 11 years after its release.
The K-pop hit made a massive splash in the summer of 2012, thanks in large part to a music video that saw Psy and a string of quirky co-stars doing the song’s signature galloping and lassoing dance moves.
The song went No. 1 around the globe, including on Billboard‘s Hot Rap Songs chart, and peaked at No. 2 on the all-genre Billboard Hot 100.
It also finished at No. 1 on Billboard‘s year-end World Digital Song Sales chart in both 2012 and 2013 and was chosen as one of the Billboard staff’s Songs That Defined the Decade in 2019.
In December 2012, “Gangnam Style” became the first video ever to hit 1 billion views on YouTube, just over 150 days after its debut.
The video’s billion-views status remained untouched for more than a year until Justin Bieber’s breakout hit “Baby” — which hit the platform in February 2010 — reached 1 billion views by 2014.
Today, “Gangnam Style” stands as the streaming platform’s 11th most popular video, with Pinkfong’s “Baby Shark Dance” coming in at No. 1 and creeping toward 14 billion views.
It’s also the fifth most-viewed music video, following Luis Fonsi’s “Despacito” (feat. Daddy Yankee), Ed Sheeran’s “Shape of You,” Wiz Khalifa’s “See You Again” (feat. Charlie Puth), and Mark Ronson’s “Uptown Funk” (feat. Bruno Mars).
In a 2017 interview with Billboard celebrating the fifth anniversary of “Gangnam Style,” Psy admitted he was still trying to crack the code of why the song went internationally viral.
“I still don’t know why it was so special,” he said at the time. “If I knew why, I could make it again and again. After five years later, I still have to talk about ‘Gangnam Style.’ If I did it intentionally, it wouldn’t work as strongly. Right now, these days, when I make music or music videos, I try my best to focus and to become [like] me from before ‘Gangnam Style.’ Not to do something intentionally. Doing it with intention takes a lot of effort for things to be natural, so that’s what I’ve felt for the last five years.”
