[Letters] ‘Gangnam Style’ an everlasting legacy

“Gangnam Style,” the title song of Psy’s sixth regular album, “Yukgap,” had a record number of views of 803,761,928 on YouTube as of Nov. 24, some 133 days after being released, defeating the existing number one, Justin Bieber’s “Baby” and rising to the top.

It was achieved more than seven times faster than “Baby,” which took 1,002 days to pass the 800-million mark, and set an unbelievable record reaching 300 million to 800 million views faster than any other videos on the Web site.

Then how long will the record views continue for “Gangnam Style” on YouTube?

No matter how popular a music video is, it begins to decline after 100 million views. The greatest music video hit, in addition to the song by the Canadian heartthrob, is “On The Block” by Jennifer Lopez, which received less than a million views daily after surpassing 500 million. However, “Gangnam Style” has achieved seven to nine million views a day even after 300 million views, continued its rising streak after 800 million views.

This year, “Gangnam Style” will easily receive as many as a billion views. In late 2012, the popularity was confirmed in the U.S., U.K. and Europe, and next year, the number of views might even exceed 1.5 billion thanks to spreading popularity throughout Asia and South American regions.” Some Japanese people criticized and were jealous of the Psy craze, giving it a relatively small number of views at 11.2 million. However, its popularity will skyrocket even in Japan in 2013, because the majority of Japanese people are well-rounded, reasonable citizens.

The record set by “Gangnam Style” - 800 million views in 133 days - will never be broken, not even by himself not to mention Justin Bieber. For at least the next 10 years, “Gangnam Style” will be unbeatable. 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 the Korean Wave Research Institute