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'Gangnam Style' the first video to hit 1B YouTube views

The music video was already the most popular video on YouTube, beating out a previous record set by pop star Justin Bieber.

Don Reisinger
CNET contributor Don Reisinger is a technology columnist who has covered everything from HDTVs to computers to Flowbee Haircut Systems. Besides his work with CNET, Don's work has been featured in a variety of other publications including PC World and a host of Ziff-Davis publications.
Don Reisinger
"Gangnam Style"
"Gangnam Style" Screen capture by Erick Mack/CNET

The wildly popular "Gangnam Style" music video by Psy has gone where no YouTube video has gone before.

Earlier today, the official video surged past 1 billion views, making it the first clip on the site to ever hit that mark, and the latest in a long line of feats for the popular video.

Last month, "Gangnam Style" surpassed pop star Justin Bieber's "Baby" video to become the most popular YouTube upload of all time. Bieber's video, which at the time had 805 million views, was beaten in just five months. As of this writing, "Baby" has 813 million video views.

"Gangnam Style" has also earned a Guinness World Records title as the most-liked video in YouTube history with over two million digital thumbs up.

Still, the march to 1 billion could have come sooner, suggesting the video's popularity may be ebbing. Last month, marketing blog Wordstream reported that the video was being viewed 4,000 times each minute, leading it to predict that it would hit 1 billion views by December 11. It missed that mark by 10 days.

As if you needed help finding the video, here it is for those who just can't quite get enough: