7.062 million views. Forget Gangnam Style, forget Despacito… YouTube has a new king, and it's a kids' video. “Baby Shark Dance” appeared on the platform in mid-2016, and since then, millions of children around the globe haven't been able to tear themselves away from the screen, singing and dancing to an addictive rhythm. Of course, that includes a legion of psychologically shattered parents… and tortured prisoners. No, we're not exaggerating…
(Editor's note: Once again, I'm sorry.)
Baby Shark: YouTube Conqueror and Torture Instrument
At the time of writing, the Baby Shark Dance video published on the Pinkfong! Kids' Songs & Stories channel has over 7.062 billion views. If we trace its origin, Pinkfong is the educational brand of SmartStudy, which in turn is a subsidiary of Samsung Publishing Co. Ltd., and that has no relation to the Samsung Group (contrary to what several fellow sites reported). In short, it's a company that publishes children's books and computer magazines, and that operates in certain food districts of South Korea.
But back to the video… At first, its content is completely innocuous: two children dancing, “baby shark”, “mommy shark”, “daddy shark”, “grandparent sharks” and lots of doo doo doo doo doo doo. Now imagine that pattern repeated to infinity. A loop that sends chills down parents' spines when their little ones stand in front of the LED TV or grab the tablet at the speed of sound, and only murmur like zombies two words, “Baby Shark”. The video debuted in mid-June 2016, and today we can say with absolute certainty that is the number 1 on YouTube. That's right, a song about a shark displaced titans like Despacito, Shape of You (Ed Sheeran), and the beautiful See You Again that served as a tribute to Paul Walker.
However, the story of Baby Shark doesn't end with its rise to the top. Quite the contrary: Early October, two prison officers from Oklahoma, Christian Miles and Gregory Butler, along with their supervisor Christopher Hendershott, were accused of conspiring, torturing, and applying corporal punishment to five prisoners. Those prisoners were handcuffed to a wall and forced to stand and listen to “Baby Shark” in two-hour sessions. The song lasts one minute and 45 seconds.
Knowing a bit about the Web, I suppose it's only a matter of time before someone invents the “Baby Shark Challenge: Can you listen to the song 70 times in a row?”
