by Wayne K. Wilkins

Created on: January 31, 2013

In 2012, Korean pop sensation “PSY” took the entire world by storm when he released the universally acclaimed “Gangnam Style” from his latest album "Endeavour."

Gangnam Style became a global anthem and just a few short months after its July 2012 release to video website YouTube, the song had earned hundreds of millions of hits. As of February 2013, “Gangnam Style” is the most-watched music video in

YouTube history, holding almost 1.3 billion views in total. Exactly what makes the song so popular? Well, there are plenty of factors that contribute to this.

The rise of social networking and the sheer power of YouTube in general play an important role in the song’s success and longevity in regards to its immense popularity. The fact that the song “went viral” in such a short space of time and was subsequently shared countless times on social networking sites and “liked” on YouTube by more than 6 million people plays an obvious factor.

The more a song is shared, the more people are going to see it and the more popular it is going to be. Now, with more social networking websites than ever with Twitter and Facebook enabling users to share videos with ease with millions of people, it’s only natural that with enough people power, the most obscure videos can become worldwide phenomena.

Of course, the fact that PSY was already very famous in Korea also plays an important factor. PSY is regarded as an “idol” in Korea, and he is one of the franchise players when it comes to the K-pop movement in that country. When PSY released a new album, it was destined for great things in Korea from the beginning. However, it could not have been predicted that the lead single from the album “Gangnam Style” would be so huge.

The video itself has everything needed to go viral. With a unique and innovative dance routine from the chubby Korean idol himself, a perfect blend of sexy Korean girls including fellow Korean idol, “Hyuna” and some flawless humor thrown in for good measure, the video alone is enough to appeal to audiences all over the world. The song itself, while impossible to understand for anyone who doesn’t speak Korean, boasts a flawless dance tune that was destined to become a club hit. All of these factors combined made up the amazing success of "Gangnam Style."

PSY is much more than a “one-hit wonder.” With his sixth studio album being his most successful to date, the Korean idol and rapper-turned-worldwide-sensation is still on the heels of his success with "Gangnam Style" itself still dominating YouTube and being featured all over the world. As the most viewed video of all time and arguably one of the biggest and most shocking successes in music history, the acclaimed "Gangnam Style" truly is a song that will go down in history as iconic and it will undeniably retain its immense popularity for years to come.

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