Last Saturday, four months after it launched on the site as just another music video by Psy, a South Korean pop star already famous in his home country, YouTube called Gangnam Style “a massive hit at a global level unlike anything we’ve ever seen before”.
Psy, real name Park Jae-Sang, had little expectation that his song, which parodies a bourgeois Seoul neighbourhood, would become YouTube’s most-watched video ever, with over 800 million views and counting, beating Canadian pop star Justin Bieber’s Baby, which had held the title since 2010.
“It’s amazing,” Psy told a news conference in Thailand on Wednesday, his first public engagement since taking the number one spot on the video sharing site. “I made this video just for Korea, actually. And when I released this song - wow.”
845,851,259 views (as of Thursday afternoon -- “Gangnam Style” is still being watched between 7 and 10 million times every day) makes a song an unprecedented hit. To compare, in the same week, British singer Adele’s album “21”, considered the biggest LP of the last 12 months, passed the 10 million sales mark.
“The velocity of popularity for PSY’s outlandish video is unprecedented,” wrote Kevin Allocca on YouTube’s own video-tracking analysis blog, Trends, on November 24.
“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.”
The video was posted on July 15 and began garnering international attention to the rotund singer -- who defies South Korean’s usually slick K-Pop music style with his comical lyrics, dance moves and atypical looks -- in early August. Musicians were among those who helped the video reach where it is today, with tweets in July and early August from stars such as Robbie Williams and Katy Perry to their millions of followers helping Gangnam Style reach the tipping point.
“P.S. TRY WATCHING THIS AND NOT SMILING I DARE YOU…(NOT EVEN A LIP CURL),” tweeted Williams on July 28. Rapper TPain followed suit on July 29, tweeting “Words cannot even describe how amazing this video is” with a link to the song.
But Gangnam Style is more than just a popular song; it’s pop-culture touchpoint, one of those moments that can unite millions. Had YouTube been around when the Beatles released Love Me Do, it might have been the same story. The song and its video are mocking of South Korean consumerism but there’s not that much more to it. There’s no need for academic studies into a hidden message; it’s just funny and self-deprecating and if the people love it, well, those in charge had better take notice.
US President Barack Obama was the first American candidate to seriously use social media to engage with his electorate, so it’s no surprise that he’s among the most high-profile Gangnam Style name-droppers. Asked on Election Day if he could do the dance, Obama replied: “I think I can do that move,” but then concluded he might “do it privately for Michelle,” the first lady. British Prime Minister David Cameron and London Mayer Boris Johnson are reported to have danced it together at the PM’s residence, while UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon admitted he had lost the title of “most famous Korean” to Psy, before matching steps with the singer. In today’s YouTube age, imitation is the ultimate form of flattery, leading to countless video parodies of Psy’s parody, done by everyone from members of the public to a recent version by Chinese dissident artist Ai Wei Wei.
And since finding global fame, Psy has performed the dance onstage with the kinds of stars who started off tweeting about his song. He joined Madonna onstage during her US tour, danced with MC Hammer during the American Music Awards last month [Nov] and taught it to Britney Spears on The Ellen Show.
At the fan-voted MTV EMAs in Frankfurt on November 11, Heidi Klum spoofed him, and he took home his first international award, for Best Video, likely to be the first of many, as the awards season is only beginning.
But while he’s sure to garner plenty of gongs for Gangnam Style, one incredibly popular song is still just a one-hit wonder. Determined to avoid that trap, Psy told AFP in Bangkok that he plans to release a worldwide album in March with dance moves that he thinks his international fans will like.
“I think I have plenty of dance moves left,” he said, in his trademark sunglasses and dark suit. “But I’m really concerned about the (next) music video.”
“How can I beat ‘Gangnam Style’?” he asked, smiling. “How can I beat 850 million views?”
