YouTube is now a major part of the internet, but it looked quite different when it first launched 13 years ago. It originally appeared in 2005, and while sharing videos online was a new idea at the time, it took people a while to get used to it.
Early videos on the platform were rough around the edges – often blurry, low-quality, and without a defined purpose. Even as it grew and creators like Smosh started building a following, it felt like uncharted territory, and everyone was still figuring out what the platform could be.
‘Gangnam Style’ Became The First YouTube Video To Hit 1 Billion Views
In 2012, PSY’s music video for ‘Gangnam Style’ became a global sensation thanks to its quirky and funny style. Released in July, it took six months for the video to reach a groundbreaking milestone: one billion views, forever changing YouTube’s landscape.
Back in 2012, it took six months for a video of a relatively unknown artist’s song to become incredibly popular – it eventually reached views equivalent to about one-seventh of the global population. But the success of ‘Gangnam Style’ really changed things after that.
The Concept Of Viral Video Has Changed A Lot Since ‘Gangnam Style’
Image via Amazon Prime Video
When YouTube first started, a video was considered hugely successful if it got hundreds of thousands of views. Back then, as a brand new platform, that felt like an incredible number of people watching and interacting with someone’s personal video.
As the platform grew in popularity, video views started to increase significantly. Channels went from having a million followers to aiming for tens of millions, and for the most successful, even hundreds of millions. Now, it’s common for a video to go viral and get millions of views on platforms like YouTube.
‘Gangnam Sytle’ Is Not The Most-Viewed YouTube Video Of All Time
It’s clear just how popular online videos have become: the most-watched videos on YouTube now have over a billion views each. Currently, the top video is ‘Baby Shark’ by Pinkfong, a song for children, with an incredible 16 billion views – that’s about twice the number of people on Earth!
Music videos and kids’ songs make up most of the top 10 most-viewed videos on YouTube, though PSY’s video is still holding strong at number nine with 5.7 billion views. What’s even more remarkable is that there are now over 400 videos on YouTube that have each been viewed more than a billion times.
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2025-12-23 01:28