[Letters] ‘Gangnam Style,’ No.1 among 7 billion

“Gangnam Style,” the title song of “Yukgap (Psy Yukgap),” Psy’s sixth regular album, had a record number of views of 803,761,928 on YouTube on Nov. 24, 133 days after being released, defeating the existing No. 1, Justin Bieber’s “Baby.” and rising to the top.

It was achieved more than 7 times faster than “Baby,” which took 1,002 days to reach 800 million views, and set an unbelievable record reaching 300 million to 800 million views faster than any other video on earth.

Here are the world records before “Gangnam Style” climbed up to the top.

It took “Gangnam Style” only 76 days to achieve 300 million views, twice as fast as Jennifer Lopez’s “On The Floor” (139 days), and overwhelmingly faster than Justin Bieber’s “Baby” (188 days) - a truly remarkable achievement.

“Gangnam Style” having 600 million views in 109 days was achieved more than 5 times faster than “On The Floor” (574 days) and “Baby” (543 days), which could not compete with “Gangnam Style” any more at the time.

Afterwards, its only rival, “Baby,” took 717 days to achieve 700 million views, six times slower than “Gangnam Style.”

YouTube is the world’s biggest video-sharing site with approximately four billion videos being played every day, 800 million viewers every month and over 800 million users. The fact that “Gangnam Style” became the No. 1 video demonstrates that it was able to beat the competition ratio of seven billion to one.

However, Psy’s “Gangnam Style” failed to rank No. 1 on the Billboard Chart. The world’s top music chart announces its No. 1 every week and approximately 3,160 songs ranked highest for the last 60 years. It means over 1,000 singers or music groups ranked No. 1 at the chart, including its repeat winners.

Therefore, the gap in No. 1 status between Billboard and YouTube is quite substantial; the former is much harder to achieve. There have been 3,160 winners at Billboard, whereas YouTube has only one winner among the world’s entire population.

Billboard’s No. 1 is as attractive as a waterfall and is recorded in history, but its victory lasts only a moment. On the other hand, YouTube’s No. 1 status is as profound as the sea and remains forever as a living history.

The record set by Psy’s “Gangnam Style”
- 800 million views in 133 days - will never be broken, not even by himself, not to mention the world’s top singer Justin Bieber. For at least the next 10 years, “Gangnam Style” will be unbeatable.

Its overseas popularity was confirmed in the U.S, U.K. and Europe for six months in 2012. It will remain all over the world in 2013. Psy’s new song, which will be released next year, might get hundreds of millions of views thanks to his previous hit, but it will never surpass the popularity of “Gangnam Style.”

by Han Koo-hyun President of Korean Wave Research Institute (KWRI)