So I was listening to a song that I like by a girl group called Blackpink on YouTube last night. I noticed that this one and a couple of their other songs have over a billion views and thought “Holy crap that’s a lot, they’re probably among the most viewed videos on YouTube”. Boy, was I wrong… I did a search and found the video below that shows time-lapse images of the top 15 most viewed videos from 2012 to the end of 2020. The top songs now have over 7 billion views. I enjoyed watching the video timeline and recognized most of the songs, which are mostly pop and hiphop stuff (btw, you may wish to watch at 2x speed with sound off if it’s too slow)… it starts with a pop song by the Bieb at the top of the list, but by late 2012 he gets replaced by that crazy Gangnam Style song. Gangnam was apparently the first to get over 1 billion views and stayed at number one for 5 years straight. After a very short stint at the top by Wiz Khalifa’s See You Again, was not surprised to see Despacito get to the top in 2017 with over 3 billion views (great song & sexy video). Despacito was the king all the way until 2020, when something weird happened: during the summer and fall of 2020 a children’s song called Baby Shark Dance flew past all the other mostly pop songs and dethroned Despacito in the late fall. A couple of other kid’s songs ended up in the top 15 list by the end of 2020 too. It appears that the lockdowns of families with children in 2020 may have changed the landscape of top songs on YouTube. The timeline is shown at the link below.