New York Times “Gangnam Style,” the surprise hit by the South Korean rapper Psy, has now been viewed on YouTube more than 805 million times, making it the channel’s most-watched video of all time, according to a post on YouTube’s Trends blog.
After first appearing on YouTube in July, “Gangnam Style” has now overtaken the previous leader, Justin Bieber’s “Baby,” which was originally uploaded in February 2010.
“Psy’s official channel now has over 1 billion views, a considerable number,” the Trends post said. “Views on Bieber’s Vevo channel alone, however, still total over 3 billion.”
My New York Times colleague Melena Ryzik interviewed Psy last month, and she wrote that “after posting compliments on Twitter about the song, Justin Bieber’s manager, Scooter Braun, signed Psy, and an English-language track may be their first collaboration.”
People have been watching Gangnam style for a combined 6,630 years worth of time- a four minute and thirteen second video over 800 million times. If this number doesn’t mean anything to you the wheel was invented 6,000 years ago and agriculture was still a thousand years away. If “Psy” would have just opened a dry cleaner or ruined the curve like any other South Korean who knows what kind of progress we could have made in the last few months.
Nope none of that matters. It’s good we’re wasting our lives away- UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon called the song a “force for world peace.” I guess nothing unites mankind like realizing that we are all dumb enough to listen to a song we don’t understand over and over and over again. Hear that terrorists? We’re not so different. We’ve all stopped caring. Everyone has so little self-respect/ is drunk enough to ride an imaginary horse in what I can only assume is not the technically correct nor a safe manner.
But of course the story can’t end there. Bieber just couldn’t keep his hands out his fans’ pockets and training bras. I’m just spitballing here but maybe this Mayan 2012 Apocalypse thing is beginning to unfold.
Ready?
Psy and Bieber drop their English collabo Gangnam style December 1 in time for musical Christmas cards, iPad mini commercials, and Hanukah parodies so the Jews don’t feel left out. Shit explodes. 4 billion views the first week. Teenage girls go nuts, bewitched by that damn rock music they all get knocked up grinding at their Middle School Snowball Dances. Abortions everywhere. Our political system goes into gridlock with Republicans threatening more hurricanes and everyone’s sons turning gay until abortions are outlawed. Discos and nightclubs around the world cave in. People get murdered if they do the dance wrong. Grandparents trying to show their grandchildren what they learned on “The Facebook” break bones and flood hospitals. Obamacare gives every single one of them $14 trillion each sending our economy into the tank. But ultimately, on December 21st of course, someone smuggles a laptop into North Korea where the Internet is illegal. Having never seen Justin Bieber before and realizing just how fucking stupid the world’s population is, Kim Jong-Un is outraged. He’s had enough. Nukes the crap out of everything. Rewards Psy for his dutiful service in Death to America. Oh wait Psy’s South Korean? He wouldn’t help the North Koreans? Yeah maybe, but don’t forget- they’re both Chinese.
PS- I’d like to formally apologize to all my Asian readers. I’m rearry, rearry sorry.
EDIT: This picture made the front page of Reddit the day after I wrote the post. I was close.
Too close…
