Baby Shark becomes YouTube's most-watched video of all time

Baby Shark becomes YouTube's most-watched video of all time - BBC News

Posted: 02 Nov 2020 12:00 AM PST

By Mark Savage
BBC music reporter

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image copyrightPinkfong / YouTube

image captionThe song has inspired tributes from Cardi B, Josh Groban and Blackpink

Baby Shark, the infuriatingly catchy children's rhyme recorded by South Korean company Pinkfong, has become the most-watched video ever on YouTube.

The song has now been played 7.04 billion times, overtaking the previous record holder Despacito, the Latin pop smash by singer Luis Fonsi.

Played back-to-back, that would mean Baby Shark has been streamed continuously for 30,187 years.

Pinkfong stands to have made about $5.2m (£4m) from YouTube streams alone.

media captionBaby Shark: It's got a catchy tune and plans for world domination - but the toddler hit is older than you think

It took four years for Baby Shark to ascend to the top of YouTube's most-played chart, but the song is actually much older than that.

It is thought to have originated in US summer camps in the 1970s. One theory says it was invented in 1975, as Steven Spielberg's Jaws became an box office smash around the world.

There are a huge number of variations on the basic premise, including one version where a surfer loses an arm to the shark, and another where the protagonist dies.

There are also international versions - including the French Bebe Requin and the German

Kleiner Hai (Little Shark), which became a minor hit in Europe in 2007.

But none of them could match the phenomenal success of Pinkfong's interpretation, which was sung by 10-year-old Korean-American singer Hope Segoine and uploaded to YouTube in 2015.

It's addictive "doo doo doo doo doo doo" hook and fishy dance moves became a craze in South Korea, where popular bands like Red Velvet, Girls' Generation and Blackpink started incorporating it into their concerts.

The following June, Pinkfong put out a second video, titled Baby Shark Dance, featuring two cute kids performing the dance routine.

That clip that inspired the hashtag #BabySharkChallenge - with everyone from Indonesian farmworkers to pop stars Cardi B and Josh Groban joining the fun.

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The song is catnip for children, whose appetite for repetition has undoubtedly helped it climb the ranks of YouTube's most-watched videos.

"Nursery rhymes have always been sort of slow, very cute, but something that would help your children fall asleep - as opposed to Baby Shark," Pinkfong's marketing director Jamie Oh told the BBC in 2018.

"Pinkfong's Baby Shark is very trendy and it has a very bright beat with fun dance moves. The animation is very vivid. We call it K-Pop for the next generation."

The company is turning the song into a movie and a musical, and aspires to make Baby Shark "another classic for kids music, like Twinkle Twinkle Little Star", Oh added.

Prison torture claim

However, Pinkfong's parent company SmartStudy was sued last year by children's songwriter Jonathan Wright, who recorded a similar arrangement of the song in 2011 and argues that he owns the copyright to that interpretation.

SmartStudy responded that their verison was "based on a traditional sing-along chant which has passed to public domain". The case is still under consideration by the Korea Copyright Commission.

Last month, the song was at the centre of another controversy, when three prison workers in Oklahoma were accused of using it to punish inmates.

According to court documents, five prisoners were handcuffed against a wall and forced to stand for two hours while listening to Baby Shark on repeat.

Exposure to the song put "undue emotional stress on the inmates who were most likely already suffering", said district attorney David Prater.

But the song has also been put to positive use.

media captionProtesters sing Baby Shark to toddler

When Eliane Jabbour unexpectedly found herself in the middle of an anti-government demonstration in Lebanon last October, she was concerned the commotion would scare her 15-month-old son, who had just woken from a nap in the passenger seat of her car.

Instead, the protestors circled her car and sang Baby Shark to help calm the toddler down.

A video of the episode in Beirut - with Robin staring wide-eyed at the singing and dancing - itself went viral, and became a symbol of hope amid the protests.

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More on this story

'Baby Shark' becomes most-watched YouTube video - The Japan Times

Posted: 12 Nov 2020 12:00 AM PST

Seoul – The wildly infectious and relentlessly repetitive children's song "Baby Shark" became the most-watched YouTube video last week, with more than 7 billion plays.

The bane of parents and teachers worldwide, the South Korea-produced song has gone from the realm of children's YouTube to a global viral sensation, with a catchy and addictive melody buoyed by a hypnotically colorful video.

"Baby Shark Dance," the English-language version of the song, clocked up over 7 billion views on YouTube at around 4 a.m. on Monday, dethroning Luis Fonsi and Daddy Yankee's "Despacito" as the most-watched video on the platform.

The ubiquitous children's song and earworm, first uploaded to YouTube in June 2016, is a remix of an American campfire song by the Seoul-based production company Pinkfong.

Its YouTube success paved its route into the global music charts, reaching the No. 32 spot on the Billboard Hot 100 in January 2019.

It has picked up plenty of adult fans along its way to global viral fame: the Washington Nationals baseball team took it up as an anthem and went on to win the World Series last year, prompting the White House to play the tune during the celebrations.

One U.S. town played the song on a loop, while another, Florida's West Palm Beach, used the melody to try to discourage homeless people from congregating in a public area.

It has also been pressed into anti-pandemic service, with a coronavirus-themed version, "Wash Your Hands," teaching children the importance of personal hygiene.

Two of the last four tracks to hold the most-played record on YouTube are South Korean — rapper Psy's megahit "Gangnam Style" held the title for more than three years until it was dethroned by Wiz Khalifa's "See You Again."