On this day in 2012, the internet was blessed with “Gangnam Style”.
The song itself birthed that iconic horseriding jig, and a slew of other memes and parodies leeching off its popularity.
No ad to show here.
But the video, and track by Korean artist Psy, may have also helped to catapult K-Pop into everyone’s collective consciousness.
Beyond that, it helped YouTube serve an additional 3.1-billion views to its users. No doubt the company’s pretty happy about that.
But “Gangnam Style” is ionic for a number of reasons:
- It became the most-liked YouTube video of all time in September 2012, but faded to fourth place
- It became the most-watched video on YouTube two months later, passing Justin Bieber’s “Baby”. It’s now fifth on the all-time list
- It was YouTube’s most watched video more nearly 1700 days
- It was the first video to hit a billion views on YouTube in December 2012
- It was the first to reach two billion views on YouTube in May 2014
- And the first video to reach three billion views on YouTube in 2017
“Despacito” has since broken pretty much every other record since, and has gone on to break the five-billion view mark too. But “Gangnam Style” will always be remembered as the track everyone and their grannies could dance along to.
Relive 2012’s best four minutes below.
Feature image: screenshot, Psy via YouTube
