The ‘Despacito’ music video (no, not the radio blasted version featuring Justin Bieber) has officially become the most watched YouTube video ever, according to a tweet from YouTube. It currently has over 3 billion views on Luis Fonsi’s official VEVO YouTube channel.
Along with being the most watched video on YouTube, it is also the first video ever to hit over 3 billion views.
‘Despacito’ overtakes ‘See You Again’ by Wiz Khalifa featuring Charlie Puth, which currently has over 2.9 billion views.
Through a video posted on the official YouTube Twitter account, Fonsi thanked his fans for helping him reach this milestone.
“I just wanted to reach out to you guys and say thank you, to you, for your support, to everybody involved like my brother Daddy Yankee and the whole production team, to Puerto Rico; the star of the show, the star of this song,” said Fonsi in the video. “… Thank you YouTube for having a platform like YouTube is so important; it has allowed us to just reach every single corner of the world. So thank you for the support, keep dancing to the song, te quiero mucho.”
One of the most famous songs to go viral on YouTube was PSY’s ‘Gangnam Style,’ which skyrocketed in popularity after its release in 2012. It also has over 2.9 billion views on YouTube. The song became a cultural phenomenon after its release, and even though it may not be the most watched YouTube video of all time, it still has extreme significance to the spreading of Korean culture.
‘Despacito’ becoming massive viral hit comes the possibility of the spreading of Puerto Rican culture, similar to how ‘Gangnam Style’ opened many people’s eyes to Korean culture. Although they may have had to do some research, people were able to find out the meaning of ‘Gangnam Style,’ which in turn helps people find out more information about South Korea (Gangnam is a district in Seoul, South Korea’s capital that is known for being flashy and youthful).
“‘Despacito’ was a song that from the time I started writing it I felt that its hook was really catchy and powerful, but at the same time very simple. The lyrics are sensual and the beat of the song will make you want to move,” said Fonsi in an interview with Billboard about the success of the song. “That’s what I wanted to create with this song: a fun track that had that Latin feel with a melody that I feel very comfortable singing and that will make people just dance.”
To not only surpass ‘See You Again’ as YouTube’s most watched video ever, and also be the first YouTube video ever to hit 3 billion views is an extremely remarkable accomplishment for ‘Despacito.’ It also proves the mass amount of people who watch YouTube, and proving that the platform has made possible success available with the upload of a video (although it maybe be more difficult to become successful now due to the sheer amount of people uploading content to YouTube).
The song is currently being airplayed over and over again on radio stations, further proving that the song’s popularity isn’t just based on the internet. As of writing, ‘Despacito’ currently has 3,001,927,274 views (meaning even after it hit 3 billion views a couple of hours ago, people have watched the music video another million times), over 17 million likes and one million dislikes. The popularity of ‘Despacito’ seems to still be rising despite hitting its milestone. It’s going to be difficult to try to overtake ‘Despacito’ in views on YouTube.
The ‘Despacito’ music video, sung by Luis Fonsi and featuring Daddy Yankee can be watched here.
Featured image via Wikimedia Commons.
