12 Years Ago, a Viral Earworm Became the First Video to Hit 2 Billion Views on YouTube

Twelve years ago, a simple music video quietly uploaded to YouTube would go on to change the platform forever. At the time, few could have predicted just how massive it would become-but in the years that followed, it set a record no other video had ever reached.

The video was Psy's "Gangnam Style," released in 2012, which exploded into a global cultural moment thanks to its catchy hook-and who could forget those dance moves? What started as a quirky K-pop track quickly crossed borders, languages, and platforms-becoming one of the first true viral sensations of the social media era.

The video for "Gangnam Style" was released on July 15, 2012, and hit the one billion mark five months later. According to Billboard, the video received 14.9 million views per day in its prime. By May 2014, "Gangnam Style" broke another record, becoming the first-ever video to pass two billion views on YouTube-12 years ago this weekend.

"I've only done this for 12 years, only for Korea, not for overseas at all," Psy told The New York Times after "Gangnam Style" blew up. "I didn't expect anything like this. So what can I say? Everything moves way too fast."

When asked about the signature dance moves he displayed in the video, Psy said he "studied hard to find something new."

"I spent like a month to find the horse dance. We are just at the studio, me and my choreographers, we are spending like 30 nights and we are thinking, what is my next dance move? Because in Korea there are huge expectations about my dancing. So it was a lot of pressure," he told The New York Times.

Fast forward 12 years and the "Gangnam Style" music video now has 5.9 billion views.

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This story was originally published May 30, 2026 at 3:25 PM.