South Korean rapper PSY’s song ‘Gangnam Style’ – and the accompanying ‘horse-riding’ dance – has become the latest international craze, inspiring a number of parodies. The song is now YouTube’s most-viewed video of all time.
In a post on its ‘Trends’ blog, YouTube announced that ‘Gangnam Style’ was viewed 805 million times as of Saturday afternoon, surpassing Canadian pop star Justin Bieber’s ‘Baby,’ which has 803 million views.
“[The] velocity of popularity for PSY’s outlandish video is unprecedented,” the blog said. “‘Gangnam Style’ and ‘PSY,’ respectively, have been the top rising searches on YouTube over the past six months. And these searches are coming from all over the world.”
PSY’s video was posted on YouTube in July of this year. The rapper’s official channel now boasts over 1 billion views.
During a face-to-face meeting in October between PSY and the UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, Ban joked he felt overshadowed by the South Korean megastar. Ban and PSY shared a headline when the rapper gave the secretary-general a lesson in some of his famous moves.
Shortly after that, Chinese dissident Ai Weiwei joined the army of ‘Gangnam Style’ fans and released his cover version of the South Korean rapper’s hugely popular video.
The creator of Britain’s largest piece of public art, British-Indian sculptor Anish Kapoor, also recently put his spin on PSY’s hit to promote free speech across the world.
