The most viewed YouTube videos from 2006 to 2019

YouTube turned 14 years old this past February, and a lot of water has flowed under the bridge. It has changed style, owners, interface (several times), and rules... which are not always communicated by its current masterminds. But despite those upheavals, millions of people visit YouTube daily to enjoy its content. Now, the question is: What are the most viewed videos? The folks at TheRanker have the answer.

What is the oldest YouTube video you remember? Personally, I think I will never forget funtwo with his Canon Rock, but that's just one example. Some videos are burned into the minds of YouTube users. Evolution of Dance, Charlie bit my finger... historical pieces by now. However, once the music factor found its place on YouTube (backed by the explosion of mobile devices), view counts exploded.

And that brings us to a recent video published by the folks at TheRanker, a graphical evolution with the Top 10 of the most viewed YouTube videos between 2006 and 2019. Some of the names that appear there will probably bring back memories, and others will surely surprise you.

The most viewed YouTube videos

Yes, there was a time when the Pokémon theme song was the number 1 video on YouTube, although in 2006 it was enough with 10 million views to receive that honor. Evolution of Dance rewrote several rules after its debut, but Avril Lavigne's song "Girlfriend" snatched the title of first video with 100 million views by a very narrow margin.

As of 2010, music's dominance was overwhelming. Lady Gaga's "Bad Romance" annihilated the 200 million views mark in May of that year, giving way to Justin Bieber's "Baby", which took the first 500 million. At that moment we all believed it would be the first to cross the billion-view barrier... but the South Korean storm arrived. The horse dance. That guy in odd suits with sunglasses. Of course, I'm talking about PSY and "Gangnam Style", a video with so many views that it actually broke YouTube.

Only the arrival of Wiz Khalifa and Charlie Puth with "See You Again" (a soundtrack from Furious 7 that still brings tears) was able to take the world's number 1 from PSY, and when everything was ready for it to claim the title of first video on YouTube with 3 billion views... Luis Fonsi ruined it with "Despacito", and light abandoned humanity forever. (?)

And so we are. Despacito left behind the 6 billion views limit, it leads Ed Sheeran by 1.8 billion reproductions, and if we have to highlight an anomaly, we actually find two: Masha and the Bear, and the Baby Shark Dance, with 6.5 billion views between them. To be continued...