Baby Shark, the infuriatingly catchy¹ children's rhyme recorded by South Korean company Pinkfong, has become the most-watched video ever on YouTube.

 

韩国碰碰狐公司录制的超洗脑儿童歌曲《宝贝鲨鱼》成为油管有史以来浏览量最高的视频。
 

 

The song has now been played 7.04 billion times, overtaking the previous record holder² Despacito, the Latin pop smash by singer Luis Fonsi.

 

Played back-to-back, that would mean Baby Shark has been streamed continuously for 30,187 years.

 

 

Pinkfong stands to have made about $5.2m from YouTube streams alone.

 

It took four years for Baby Shark to ascend³ to the top of YouTube's most-played chart, but the song is actually much older than that.

 

It is thought to have originated in US summer camps in the 1970s. One theory says it was invented in 1975, as Steven Spielberg's Jaws⁴ became an box office smash around the world.

 

There are a huge number of variations on the basic premise⁵, including one version where a surfer loses an arm to the shark, and another where the protagonist⁶ dies.

 

But none of them could match the phenomenal success of Pinkfong's interpretation⁷, which was sung by 10-year-old Korean-American singer Hope Segoine and uploaded to YouTube in 2015.

 

It's addictive⁸ "doo doo doo doo doo doo" hook and fishy⁹ dance moves became a craze in South Korea, where popular bands like Red Velvet¹⁰, Girls' Generation and Blackpink started incorporating it into their concerts.

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