baby shark screen grab with blue background

Pinkfong’s "Baby Shark Dance" has officially overtaken Luis Fonsi’s "Despacito" as the most viewed music video on YouTube and the most viewed video on YouTube overall.

The children's rhyme, created by Pinkfong (Republic of Korea) and initially uploaded to YouTube on the 17 June 2016, has garnered an incredible 7,042,967,886 views as of 2 November 2020.

The video has also broken the record title for the most viewed children's music video on YouTube.

The catchy Baby Shark tune was sung by 10-year-old Korean-American singer Hope Segoine. 

It became a viral sensation when it was released but it’s taken four years for it to slowly and steadily reach the top of the list for the most viewed video on YouTube.

Before the record was snapped up by Baby Shark, it was held by the music video for "Despacito", a collaboration between Puerto Rican duo Luis Fonsi and Daddy Yankee.

However this music video still holds records for the most liked video online and the first YouTube video to receive 5 billion views.

The precise origins of the Baby Shark song are unknown but it could date back to the 1970’s from US summer camps.

The dance then became a craze in South Korea initially, with fellow record holders BlackPink incorporating it into their sets.

The record for most viewed video on YouTube had not changed hands since 2017 before Baby Shark, with "Despacito" overtaking Charlie Puth and Wiz Khalifa’s single "See You Again". 

South Korean singer PSY held the record from 2012 until 2017 with his global hit "Gangnam Style". 

 The first holder of the record was Justin Bieber with his debut single, "Baby" – setting the initial record in 2010 with 425 million views. 

Baby Shark has been viewed 16 times more than that and, played back-to-back, has a cumulative running time of over 30,000 years. 

It also has over 22 million likes and 10 million dislikes, making it both one of the most liked and disliked videos ever on YouTube. 

Baby Shark actually features in the most "disliked" video on YouTube, with a colourful reenactment of the song's video appearing in "YouTube Rewind 2018: Everyone Controls Rewind | #YouTubeRewind". This video achieved 10,360,124 dislikes as of 13 December 2018 when verified, and now has approximately 18 million.
 
Header image credit: Pinkfong / YouTube