#54 Gangnam Style breaks YouTube record

Gangnam Style music video has taken YouTube by storm.

(Credit: Screenshot by Jennifer Guevin/CNET)

54/100

See all

...Prev
#1. Samsung v. Apple
#2. Windows 8
#3. Mobile usage reaches tipping point
#4. Tablets go mainstream
#5. New fronts in the tech wars
#6. Samsung Galaxy S3
#7. Apple iPhone 5
#8. Foxconn charged with poor working conditions
#9. Facebook's IPO
#10. Tim Cook
#11. LTE/4G connectivity
#12. Marissa Mayer
#13. SOPA legislation
#14. Microsoft Surface
#15. Google Nexus 7
#16. Steven Sinofsky
#17. Cracks show at Apple in the post-Jobs era
#18. Apple iPad Mini
#19. Patent wars heat up
#20. BlackBerry 10 delay
#21. Curiosity starts roving around Mars
#22. Bandwidth crunch has consumer implications
#23. Virtual assistants for mobile devices
#24. Mark Zuckerberg
#25. High-pixel density in your hand
#26. Social algorithms and social mapping
#27. Crowdfunding ideas
#28. Startups jump the shark (and get their own TV show!)
#29. Apple's 'mapology'
#30. The quick rise and fall of Zynga
#31. Phablets
#32. Jeff Bezos
#33. Disney buys Lucasfilm
#34. Traditional TV business model gets turned on its head
#35. Ultrabooks DOA
#36. Windows Phone 8
#37. Motorola Droid Razr Maxx
#38. MakerBot Replicator
#39. Rise of Instagram
#40. Sandy pushes the limits of tech
#41. Mobile payments
#42. Privatization of space travel
#43. Nintendo Wii U
#44. Jack Dorsey
#45. Netflix's undoing and recovery
#46. Twitter gets even bigger
#47. Cloud computing goes mainstream
#48. Sergey Brin
#49. Huawei accused of harboring international spies
#50. Social media makes money
#51. Wearable technology
#52. 4K TVs
#53. Chromebook gets real
#54. Gangnam Style breaks YouTube record
#55. Sheryl Sandberg
#56. Concierge economy takes off
#57. Path privacy scandal leads to App Store changes
#58. Nokia Lumia family
#59. Elon Musk of SpaceX
#60. Home automation
#61. Flashback malware hits Macs
#62. Tesla Model S
#63. Google Glass
#64. Thorsten Heins takes over at RIM
#65. Decline of Japanese CE companies
#66. Companies choose 'glamor' launches over trade shows
#67. Lytro camera
#68. iPad with Retina Display
#69. Nate Silver
#70. Cyberwarfare gets real
#71. Political hackers
#72. Larry Page
#73. 3D TV
#74. Drones
#75. Reed Hastings
#76. Jonathan Ive
#77. Curation becomes a form of expression
#78. Kim Dotcom
#79. Felix Baumgartner goes supersonic
#80. Nokia 808 PureView
#81. Square corners
#82. Mike Daisey
#83. Connected car revolution has arrived
#84. Lenovo IdeaPad Yoga 13
#85. Everything on demand
#86. Mat Honan
#87. The rise of touch
#88. OLED TVs
#89. Deal sites have a rough year
#90. The Apple TV that wasn't
#91. Google Nexus Q
#92. Self-driving cars win legal approvals
#93. Video games arrive at a crossroads
#94. Women make advances in technology
#95. Gesture controls grow up
#96. Julian Assange
#97. John McAfee blogs on the run
#98. Scott Thompson
#99. IPv6
#100. James Cameron's deep-sea dive
Next...

2012 was the year the entire world went "Gangnam." In November, indigenous locals from the Andean hills in northern Ecuador gathered at a Saturday market in the nearest town, but the day didn't seem to truly get underway until someone plugged a flash drive into a boombox and South Korea's Psy began chanting "Op op op op oppan Gangnam Style!"

Psy and "Gangnam Style" have achieved a lot in just the second half of 2012. Not only did the K-pop sensation make galloping cool again, it made it a requisite dance move for just about anyone who appears on television. The wide range of people seen dancing "Gangnam" includes Tibetan protesters, Google's Eric Schmidt, and a piazza full of thousands of people in Sicily, Italy.

"Gangnam Style" didn't just set a trend, though. It swallowed other pop icons whole. The music video was so popular on YouTube that it overtook Justin Bieber's No. 1 spot -- which had been built up over the course of the last few years -- in mere months, on its way to become the first video with a billion views.

All that cultural mojo has plenty of "real" value, too. It illustrates a shift in the way music is released in Korea. And after only a few months of world domination, the "Gangnam" meme was estimated to have generated at least $50 million. Former Republican Senator Alan Simpson even saw the political value of the sensation and went "Gangnam" to get young people interested in his debt reduction efforts. Now, that's a ditty with some broad appeal.

Go back to the CNET 100