Who Will Watch ‘Gangnam Style’ For the Billionth Time?

Sometime in the next day, maybe in the next few hours, humanity will hit a major milestone that has nothing to do with the Mayan apocalypse (we hope).

For the first time in history, we will be able to state categorically that a single piece of visual entertainment has been watched more than a billion times.

No prizes for guessing what that video will be: the surprise international smash hit of 2012; the song that made Seoul's richest neighborhood world-famous; the video that reveals for the first time exactly how much fun you can have in a powder blue tuxedo jacket; the meme that spawned a thousand imitations. Oppa Gangnam Style.

At time of writing, all that stands between "Gangnam Style" and the billion-view milestone is a mere 5,722,039 clicks of the play button.

That may sound like a lot, but not for this video. When it comes to going viral, Psy's $8 million mega-hit is on another plane of existence. For example: as I wrote this story, I had to revise that number above twice. "Gangnam Style" has gained another three million views in a matter of hours.

That's far above its average rate of gain, which YouTube says is roughly 7 million new views per day. Either Psy is growing more popular by the second, or there's a global contest going on to watch "Gangnam Style" for the billionth time.

I'm just lucky I'm not writing this on Saturday -- which, according to YouTube, is the day of the week most people tend to watch the Psy video. (The company also says there's a spike in views for Rebecca Black's "Friday" on a Friday, even now). Make of that what you will.

Bigger Than Bieber, Bigger than Star Wars

"Gangnam Style" is already the most-watched video of all time, having overtaken Justin Bieber's "Baby" back in late November. Since then, "Baby" has gained another 10 million views -- and "Gangnam Style" has gained nearly 200 million.

Again, let's put that in perspective. Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope, one of the most watched films of all time, has sold around 163 million movie tickets in total, according to this box office analysis. "Gangnam Style" added that number of views in three weeks. It laughs at Star Wars.

Of course, the number of views on a YouTube video does not correlate to the number of people who've watched it, just as the number of tickets sold doesn't tell you how many people have seen a given movie. We'll probably never know exactly how many people have watched "Gangnam Style" since it exploded on our screens in mid-July, just as we'll never know how much of the planet has seen A New Hope at least once.

But consider this: how many people clustered around the screen the last time you fired up "Gangnam Style"? How many of us have only seen it on other people's machines, adding nothing to the view total? How many times has it been shown at parties, again, notching up just a single view? For all we know, more than a billion people have already seen the video.

The view count is the only metric we have, and it's far better than any box-office ranking or Nielsen measurement.

The view count is the only metric we have, and it's far better than any box-office ranking or Nielsen measurement. It is absolute and unimpeachable. The view count doesn't lie. Who on this planet will watch "Gangnam Style" for the billionth time? Only the view count knows. Hopefully, whomever it is will take a screen shot.

YouTube is looking into the question of whether they'll be able to identify where it was watched for the billionth time, if not by whom.

SEE ALSO Gangnam Style! Anatomy of a Viral Sensation

No doubt scholarly treatises are already being penned by media studies Ph.D.s on why this video became such a monster hit, and why we keep coming back to it. Is it the earworm dance track and the horse-riding dance? Does that explain why it gets most views on a Saturday -- firing it up to get your weekend started in the morning, dancing your socks off at night?

That's a big part of it. But I think it also comes down to two other factors. Watch this video from mid-August, in which U.S. teens are shown "Gangnam Style" for the first time, and you'll hear two words come up repeatedly: "random" and "swag." As in "that was the most random thing I've ever seen," and "that guy's swag is off the charts."

The lesson, then, is what you really knew about "Gangnam Style" all along, deep down.

The lesson, then, is what you really knew about "Gangnam Style" all along, deep down. It succeeded because it stood out, because it was most definitely not business as usual, and because Psy throws himself and his passion into this utterly ridiculous pastiche with the force of a hurricane.

We've seen this time and time again with those who dare, with every ounce of their being, to be different from the cultural norm. The Beatles could not have been less like Pat Boone. Punk Rock took pompous Stadium Rock and threw it in the trash. Psy saw a world filled with indie guitar strummers and hip hop stars, and he donned his tux and danced like a jockey.

Memo to the entertainment industry: don't give us more of the same. Just because a K-Pop star made it big doesn't mean we necessarily need everything to be K-Pop now. How do you get to a billion views? By being stupendously original.

If that lesson is heeded, then this milestone will be less about marking the end of the world than starting a new one.

And now we've whetted your appetite, let's all watch the original more time. Who knows, perhaps you, dear reader, could be the one to turn the view counter over to 1,000,000,000.