The K-pop industry may owe part of its fast-rising YouTube viewership and expanding popularity outside of Asia to the incredible success of PSY's "Gangnam Style".
YouTube noted on its Trends blog that after "Gangnam Style" blew up as a worldwide phenomenon, other K-pop videos saw a notable increase in views beyond their traditional fan base in Asia.
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"The influence of Gangnam Style cannot just be measured in the video's total views, watch time and sheer numbers of fans. Perhaps even more remarkably, the K-pop crossover hit helped introduce a whole new infectious sound to the rest of the world," said YouTube on its Trends blog.
"Prior to Gangnam Style, a typical K-pop track would receive the lion's share of its views from Asia. Just a year after Gangnam, however, global views of K-pop videos jumped to ~30 million views a day, with more than 95% of their views coming from outside their country of origin," noted YouTube.
To compare, YouTube said that Big Bang's "Fantastic Baby" music video which was released in 2012 before "Gangnam Style" received 50% of its first month's views from Asia.
But after "Gangnam Style" took Earth by storm, YouTube said "the effect helped formerly regional South Korean favorites like 2NE1 and the aforementioned Big Bang crossover into YouTube's mainstream, earning a combined 1.5B views and 7,600+ years of watch time since Gangnam Style was first unleashed on the world."
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Mickey is a writer and digital content creator based in Manila. He is a co-founder of ZAVI App and editor of the small business blog IndieMickey.
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