If something is really, really, world-crushingly popular, then it clearly it is good, or at least has some merit. Maybe more people have, at one point, heard the song 'Billie Jean.' But basically, everything that is dear to me crumbles to dust in the face of the monolith that is 'Gangnam Style.' There are many ways to evaluate art, but I'm a firm believer in the theory that numbers don't lie-at least not that much. It's probably safe to say that more people have watched this video than have enjoyed every single piece of music I have ever interacted with. By the time Psy was in the sauna, I, too, was sweating in a small room as I realized with certainty that I had missed out on what, at least by one definitive metric, is the most universal piece of video in human history. But as the first few scenes unfolded, I realized none of this looked familiar. I was sure I had seen this document that everyone on the planet who has interacted with music online in the last two years knew. As I went to write this blog post with its original title, ''Gangnam Style' Just Became the First YouTube Video with 2 Billion Views' I was all prepared to draw on all my favorite 'Gangnam Style' video references to make it really pop. I have definitely watched the video with the second most views, Justin Bieber's 'Baby,' multiple times.īut I have never watched the video for 'Gangnam Style.' I have live tweeted multiple televised music events. I have made GIFs from many YouTube videos. I have listened to rap mixtapes with mere hundreds of downloads and participated in the frenzy that was buying the platinum-selling album Beyoncé on the night it was released. I have established a career as a professional music writer, in which it is literally my job to watch music videos on YouTube. I have consumed many forms of media in large quantities.

In the course of the last 684 days, I have lived in four different apartments in two different cities. According to tech site The Verge, it took 525 days for 'Gangnam Style' to rack up its second billion views, while the first billion took just 159. It became the first video to do so, after also becoming the first video to reach 1 billion views in 2012. Here are some facts: Last night, Korean musical artist Psy's global smash hit song 'Gangnam Style' reached 2 billion views on YouTube.

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