This Is Now the Most-Watched Video on YouTube

With 7.04B views, 'Baby Shark' has officially beat out 'Despacito'
By Jenn Gidman,  Newser Staff
Posted Nov 2, 2020 9:40 AM CST

You had a good run, "Despacito." The 2017 music video by Luis Fonsi and Daddy Yankee had been ruling the YouTube roost as the most-viewed video ever on the video-sharing platform, with 7,038,120,000 or so views as of Monday morning. Now, per the Guardian, that position of authority has been knocked down by a shark—"Baby Shark," to be precise, the earworm children's video by Pinkfong that has entranced young kids and tortured their parents since it was first uploaded in June 2016. The less-than-two-minute video, which claimed upward of 7,041,211,000 views as of Monday, initially went viral in Southeast Asia before infiltrating Europe and the US. It also resulted in an avalanche of Baby Shark merch, books, and even a live tour.

Yonhap notes that "Despacito" had been seated in the most-viewed throne since August 2017. "[We're genuinely] thankful to everyone who appreciates Pinkfong's 'Baby Shark,'" says Kim Min-seok, the CEO of SmartStudy, the South Korean educational entertainment company that owns the Pinkfong brand. "We will work hard to offer more diverse entertainment to global fans by developing various intellectual property." Despite that statement, the Guardian notes that the "Baby Shark" tune isn't actually owned by Pinkfong and is in the public domain, and that one songwriter has even sued the company, claiming he recorded a very similar song in 2011 and has it copyrighted. That case is still apparently pending. (More Baby Shark stories.)

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