Gangnam Style broke YouTube's view counter
PSY's "Gangnam Style" was the first video to reach a billion views on YouTube. In 2014 it got so close to the maximum number the view counter could store that YouTube upgraded it.
A song about a neighborhood
"Gangnam Style" is a K-pop song by South Korean singer PSY, released on July 15, 2012. Gangnam is a wealthy district of Seoul, and the song pokes fun at people who show off a flashy lifestyle. The video featured PSY's famous "horse riding" dance, comic scenes and quick cameos.
Within weeks it was spreading worldwide. By late August 2012 it had passed "Call Me Maybe" to top YouTube's chart of most-watched music videos.
The first billion
On December 21, 2012, "Gangnam Style" became the first YouTube video ever to reach one billion views. YouTube celebrated by adding a small animated dancing PSY next to the view counter. By May 31, 2014, it had reached two billion, again the first video ever to do so.
The counter problem
Then came the most famous bit of trivia about the video. YouTube's view counter had been stored as a 32-bit signed integer. That kind of number can only go up to 2,147,483,647. Nobody at YouTube had expected any video to get anywhere close.
As "Gangnam Style" approached that limit, YouTube upgraded the counter. In December 2014 the company announced that it had switched to a 64-bit integer, joking that it never thought a video would be watched more times than a 32-bit number could hold. The new limit is more than 9 quintillion, enough for any video for the foreseeable future.
| Counter type | Maximum value |
|---|---|
| 32-bit signed integer | 2,147,483,647 (about 2.1 billion) |
| 64-bit signed integer | 9,223,372,036,854,775,807 (about 9.2 quintillion) |
Why integer limits matter
Computers store numbers in fixed-size boxes. A 32-bit box has room for about 4.3 billion different values. If the number can be negative ("signed"), half of that range is used for negative numbers, leaving about 2.1 billion as the top. Go one higher and the number can "overflow," wrapping around to a large negative value. Many famous software bugs, from video game glitches to date problems, come from numbers outgrowing their boxes.
YouTube's fix was simple because it happened early. The lesson for engineers is to plan for success that is far bigger than expected.
What happened next
Other videos later passed "Gangnam Style" in total views, and billion-view videos are now common. But it remains the video that proved a song in Korean, with a goofy dance, could become a worldwide hit through the internet alone. It helped open the door for the global rise of K-pop.
What it teaches
- Plan for huge success. YouTube's engineers did not imagine a video this big, until one arrived.
- Viral is global. Language was no barrier to a catchy hook and a dance anyone could copy.
- Firsts are remembered. Plenty of videos have more views now. The first billion still belongs to PSY.
- Tech limits are real. Every system has a maximum. The question is whether you find it before your users do.
For another video that became an internet tradition, read about the Rickroll.
