“Gangnam Style” Was Released One Year Ago Today

It was July 15, 2012, when our chubby little friend released the video with his horsey dance.  And yes, it was an interesting global hit (as I write this, the YouTube views are at 1,742,458,065–the all-time record for a single video of any sort).  

But what’s more interesting to me is what “Gangnam Style” (and the follow-up, “Gentlemen”) did for K-pop in general.  This graph shows the correlation between Psy releases and the amount of interest in K-pop artists in terms of video views on YouTube.

Breaking this down a little more, K-pop artists (including Psy) were seen over 7 billion times, a threefold increase from the pre-Psy era.  And 91% of all viewing was done outside Korea.  Wow.

Bands to benefit from the Psy effect include Girls Generation and Big Bang, both of which were unknown to large parts of the planet before “Gangnam Style.”

The power of a hit, huh?  And there’s much more.  Read all about it at Wired.