Browse the Archive

2016

Baby Shark Dance — Pinkfong (2016)

17.2B views · 8.6x growth

Pinkfong's two-minute shark chant is the most-watched video in YouTube history. Built for toddler replay behaviour and amplified by the YouTube Kids algorithm, it crossed into Billboard charts and pandemic-era ubiquity.

2012

PSY — Gangnam Style (2012)

9.1B views · 9.1x growth

PSY's satire of Seoul's affluent Gangnam district became the first YouTube video to pass one billion views, breaking the platform's 32-bit view counter and opening Western mainstream radio to Korean-language pop for the first time.

2017

Luis Fonsi — Despacito ft. Daddy Yankee (2017)

8.4B views · 2.1x growth

Luis Fonsi and Daddy Yankee's reggaeton single became the first video to reach three, four, five, six and seven billion views, held the most-viewed record for three years, and reopened US radio to Spanish-language music.

2010

Justin Bieber — Baby ft. Ludacris (2010)

3.1B views · 6.2x growth

Justin Bieber's debut single held the most-viewed YouTube video record for over two years and simultaneously became the most-disliked video on the platform, making it the first mass demonstration of coordinated internet backlash.

2013

Harlem Shake — Baauer (2013)

1.2B views · 4x growth

Baauer's track powered the fastest-spreading meme in YouTube history: 4,000 Harlem Shake videos were uploaded per day at February 2013's peak, establishing the reusable template format that TikTok would later automate.

2007

Charlie Bit My Finger — Again! (2007)

892M+ views · 8.9x growth

A 56-second home video of two English brothers became the most-watched user-generated clip of the early YouTube era. Harry's yelp after Charlie bites his finger turned an ordinary living-room moment into a global catchphrase and the template for family viral content.

2006

Evolution of Dance — Judson Laipply (2006)

310M views · 10x growth

Judson Laipply's six-minute run through fifty years of dance was the most-viewed YouTube video from 2006 to 2009 and the first clip to prove that a single upload could make an unknown performer internationally famous.

2005

Numa Numa Dance — Gary Brolsma (2004)

200M views · 20x growth

Gary Brolsma's webcam lip-sync to O-Zone's Dragostea Din Tei predates YouTube entirely. Hosted on Newgrounds in December 2004, it established the webcam performance as an internet format and made an ordinary teenager an unwilling celebrity.

2007

Chocolate Rain — Tay Zonday (2007)

142M views · 28x growth

Tay Zonday's self-produced protest song about systemic racism became a meme for the wrong reason — his startlingly deep voice and the on-screen note that he moves away from the mic to breathe — and defined 2007 remix culture.

2007

LEAVE BRITNEY ALONE! — Chris Crocker (2007)

56M views · 28x growth

Chris Crocker's tearful defence of Britney Spears, filmed under a bedsheet the day after her 2007 VMA performance, drew two million views in 48 hours and became the defining example of the confessional webcam video.

1998

Dancing Baby — The First Viral Video (1996–1998)

50M views · First viral ever growth

A 3D animation demo file of a nappy-clad baby doing the cha-cha spread by email chain in 1996, reached television via Ally McBeal in 1997, and is universally recognised as the first viral video — a decade before YouTube existed.