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How did ‘Gangnam style’ become the most loaded youtube video at 805 million views?

Christopher Koulouris: About author bio at bottom of article.

November 24, 2012

Personally after watching the below clip for an unbearable 45 seconds I haven’t quite worked out how this delicious monstrosity has to date managed to rack up the most all time youtube views ever at 805 million views to now even beat out another monstrosity, Justin Bieber’s ‘Baby.’

Then again that might be the clue to racketing up large views on youtube: be outrageous, vulgar, self parodying, over the top, contagious, have one heck of a beat, be copied and revered/mentioned by people of note and of course as tasteless as possible without offending anyone except for the occasional blogger who is charged with the awful job of trying to understand how culture went from once being a serious occupation to that of a full time meme parody of itself.

Reports the UK’s guardian: The camp video, which has spawned a growing number of spoof and tribute clips, wrested the title from Canadian singer Justin Bieber’s Baby, which has more than 803m views.

Psy, whose real name is Park Jae-sang, has become an international star since Gangnam Style’s release in July.

Psy’s song, which pokes fun at the fashion-conscious residents of an upmarket neighbourhood in Seoul, has topped charts around the world, selling more than 4m copies worldwide.

To date an array of public figures, including Chinese dissident artist Ai Weiwei, the sculptor Anish Kapoor, and UN secretary-general Ban Ki-moon have copied Park Jae-sang’s “horse riding” dance. Tribute videos include a parody by students from Eton, which has been viewed more than 2.7m times.

Interestingly, what makes Psy Gangnam‘s ascent even more amazing is the fact that it took just four months for his video to rocket to over 800 million views, compared to two years for Bieber’s “Baby.”

Points out gawker, Gangnam style is also the most liked video of all time with over 5.3 million likes. Probably worth noting that Justin Bieber’s “Baby” is the most Disliked video on YouTube with over 3.2 million dislikes.

Of course if it’s worth anything, you can add a dislike strike across Gangnam style’s box courtesy of moir…