‘Gentleman’ world’s fastest video to reach 200 million views – what will happen in the next 9 days?
‘Gentleman’ has finally reached 200 million hits on YouTube.
Psy’s new music video, on April 22 at 5:10p.m, has accumulated 212million views on YouTube just on his official page. It broke the record for reaching the number in the shortest period of time in YouTube’s history.
Psy was able to achieve this triumph in just 212 hours, in other words, 9 days and 20 hours, as the video was only released on April 13 at 9p.m. His previous mega-hit video, ‘Gangnam Style’ took 66 days to reach the same number, which means ‘Gentleman’ is 57 days ahead of the previous video.
The quickly climbing viewer number clearly proves that Psy is not at all a one-hit wonder.
This is all thanks to the pervious video that went viral all across the world, the video that raked in 1.5 billion viewers. Psy unveiled his latest music video at his concert dubbed Happening, a concert to celebrate the release of the new song, which was held at Seoul Sangam World Cup Stadium. 45,000 fans watched him perform the new song for the first time, along with watching the music video. The concert was watched by 160,000 international fans when it was streamed live on YouTube. Scooter Braun, who is in charge of Psy while he is the U.S., was also present in Seoul.
Major foreign media such as ABC, CNN, BBC and Billboard aired series of news on Psy, mainly the release of his new song. This was another contributor to his quickly spread popularity.
An hour past noon on April 14, ‘Gentleman’ had 10 million hits, in just 16 hours after the release at 9p.m. the previous day. Around the same hour ‘Gentleman’ was ranked within the top 100 on iTunes Top Singles Songs chart in 62 different countries including the U.S., England, Japan, Singapore and New Zealand at the same time.
But the number jumped even more quickly since, and only took 25 hours (since the release; this applies to all the following hours) to hit 20 million on April 14, and 31 hours to 30 million on the next day and a mere 36 hours to 40 million on April 15. The number of clicks went up even faster then and on the same day, in 40 hours since the release, the viewers hit 50 million.
In just three days from the release, ‘Gentleman’ gained 67 million on 16th, which was then listed on top 10 of YouTube’s most viewed video list. On the same day it hit 86 million hits, and stood on No.1 on YouTube’s weekly chart.
After four days of release, the viewer hits reached 100 million on April 17, and the number continued to climb. ‘Gangnam Style’ reached the same number in 52 days, which dates back to Sept 4, and compared to that ‘Gentleman’ was 48 days ahead of its predecessor.
It did not stop there. ‘Gentleman’ raked in 120 million on the same day. And its popularity was touching every corner of the world, as he ranked No.1 on iTunes Top Singles Chart in 42 countries including Argentina, Belgium, Brazil, Bulgaria, Russia, Switzerland and Singapore.
And he was also ranked in the top range on Billboard from the first week of it being listed. ‘Gentleman’ made its debut on Billboard on April 27, and on HOT 100, the main singles chart, he ranked No.12. He is the first Korean artist to have two songs listed simultaneously on the same Billboard chart. ‘Gangnam Style’ was at 64th when it first made its debut on HOT 100, so ‘Gentleman’ is doing far better than the previous hit.
He ranked the top in 5 different categories genre charts. And these charts include Billboard’s Streaming Songs, Rap Streaming Songs, Dance/Electronic Streaming Songs, K-Pop HOT 100, and YouTube Chart. This is a clear testament to his spectacular popularity in streaming and YouTube categories in the U.S.
But there are also some criticism given on the follow-up of ‘Gangnam Style’, as it drew an enormous portion of attention from all across the world even before its release. Many said that the video objectifies women and is too explicitly sexual. Adding to this, KBS (Korea Broadcasting System) argued that the video is inappropriate to air on television as Psy vandalizes public property. The scenes that caused the problem was where Psy kicks a cone on the street with ‘no parking’ sign written on it. Such domestic news attracted attention from abroad.
Even then, ‘Gentleman’ is gaining more popularity than ‘Gangnam Style.’ The watchers around the world are increasing exponentially. At its peak, he accumulated 1.25 million hits an hour. In just 9 days (April 22) of its release, the video raked in 200 million viewers. On the UK Chart, which is the hub of pop music, he was able to rank within top 10 in just two short weeks.
And now Psy is getting ready to fly to the U.S. on April 25. In the States he will be appearing on television and on radio programs for promoting ‘Gentleman.’ But this is just the beginning as his American trip will be followed by Europe and Asia, creating another Psy tornado all over the world.
