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.
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.
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.
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. BBC
Tags:
Baby Shark