The South Korean pop track ‘Gangnam Style’, sung by rapper PSY, reached the incredible mark of one billion views this Friday, on the leading video streaming site Youtube.
Breaking a number of records; it overtook Justin Bieber’s song ‘Baby’, which became the most popular YouTube video of all times, Gangnam Style hits another Youtube milestone, by standing as the first video to reach one billion views on YouTube.
The view counter attached to the most famous song on YouTube hit 10 figures at around 1550 GMT, marking its status as the most viewed video on the site’s entire history.
“One billion views is an incredible number,” said Kevin Allocca, YouTube trends manager, who attributed Psy’s success “to the universal appeal of catchy music — and er, great equine dance moves.”
Gaining an immense amount of popularity for his famous pop song, PSY, originally known as Park Jae-Sang, was awarded one of South Korea’s highest cultural honours, the Okgwan Order of Cultural Merit and appeared as a guest with almost everyone from Madonna to the head of the Unite Nations.
PSY invented a unique dancing step in this popular song that involves crossing the wrists while imitating riding a horse and has been merrily teaching others how to master it.
Expressing his views in a blog spot, Alloca said: “Perhaps what’s most impressive about this feat is that it took just over five months to happen,”
Amongst a billion views over YouTube on PSY’s hit song ‘Gangnam Style’, over one third hits originated from mobile devices, while Facebook reported a total of 45 million via links and YouTube embeds. Over 4 million comments have posted on the video so far with a total of 6 million and 1.8 million favorites to this date. Interestingly, around 435,000 dislikes have also been reported on the popular video.
It is also notable that this song earned PSY a contract with Justin Bieber’s management agency and projections have been posted claiming “Gangnam Style” has generated over $8.1 million ads deals.
The 34 year old emerging pop star is estimated to have made £150,210 from the YouTube views alone, with around £5million more from CD sales, downloads, and live gigs.
