Photo Credit: Pinkfong‘Baby Shark’ has become the first YouTube video to reach 10 billion views – a phenomenon for kids.
Pinkfong’s catchy hit became the most-viewed YouTube video of all time in November 2020. Just a year later, the video has achieved another milestone as the first video to reach ten billion views. Previous videos to reach these milestones were pop music videos, not kids’ videos.
The Baby Shark phenomenon has expanded into a show in Nickelodeon, a Baby Shark movie, and even Baby Shark NFTs. Baby Shark may be the first YouTube video to reach 10 billion views, but others are close behind.
A quick look at the rankings from Wikipedia shows the next most popular video is three million+ behind at the time of writing. These rankings change, but as of January 2022 here’s the most popular videos on YouTube.
- Pinkfong – “Baby Shark Dance” | 10 billion views
- Luis Fonsi – “Despacito” | 7.70 billion views
- LooLoo Kids – “Johny Johny Yes Papa” | 6.10 billion views
- Ed Sheeran – “Shape of You” | 5.58 billion views
- Wiz Khalifa – “See You Again” | 5.38 billion views
- Cocomelon – “Bath Song” | 4.86 billion views
- Miroshka TV – “Learning Colors” | 4.55 billion views
- Get Movies – “Masha and the Bear” | 4.48 billion views
- Mark Ronson – “Uptown Funk” | 4.42 billion views
- ChuChu TV – “Phonics Song with Two Words” | 4.41 billion views
Out of the top ten most-viewed videos on YouTube, kids’ videos occupy six of the ten spots. The first video to reach a billion views, Psy’s “Gangnam Style” isn’t even in the top ten list anymore. It sits at #11, edged out by songs designed to teach kids their colors or how to say multi-syllable words.
YouTube’s Billion View Club
The billion views club was an early metric to gauge a video’s viral success. It took three years after Psy’s “Gangnam Style” hit one billion views for another video to achieve that goal. Since then, here are some interesting facts about the billion view club.
Guns N’ Roses “November Rain” music video was the first video shot prior to YouTube’s creation to join the club in July 2018. “Numb” by Linkin Park was the first 2000s-era video to reach one billion views later that year, in November 2018. “Bohemian Rhapsody” by Queen was the first video from the 1970s to join the club in July 2019. And “Sweet Child o’ Mine” by Guns N’ Roses is the first ’80s music video to join the club in October 2019.
