Korean Pop star Psy’s 2012 smash hit ‘Gangnam Style’ officially lost the title of YouTube’s most-watched video to Wiz Khalifa’s video for ‘See You Again,’ featuring Charlie Puth. On Tuesday morning, the Pittsburgh rapper’s 2015 single hit over 2.8 billion views, beating the five-year stretch held by the K-Pop anthem.
The new record comes merely five days before the five-year anniversary of ‘Gangnam Style’s initial release on YouTube, which replaced Justin Bieber’s most-viewed record in November of 2012. Psy’s iconic and quirky K-Pop hit was actually so popular that YouTube had to increase its counter from a 34-bit integer to a 64-bit – a drastic change to keep track of all the views the video received.
In the last year, ‘See You Again’ averaged over 3 million views per day, which even surprised Charlie Puth, as he Tweeted:
For the record, I joined @YouTube in 2007 hoping to make a video that would reach 10,000 views. Just heard about See You Again…wow.
— Charlie Puth (@charlieputh) July 11, 2017
Khalifa, himself, even released a statement, thanking his fans for the love and support in allowing the YouTube video achieve record-breaking history.
‘See You Again’ was written for the soundtrack of ‘Furious 7’, and even acts as a tribute to the late Paul Walker, who passed away before the film’s release. The film was the seventh addition to the Fast & Furious franchise, which is also one of the most popular series of all time.
