Baby Shark Is Officially The Most-Watched YouTube Video Of All Time

In news that will no doubt haunt the dreams of parents everywhere, Baby Shark is now officially the most-watched YouTube video of all time.

The cheerful cartoon predator has swam ahead of Luis Fonsi’s extraordinarily catchy Despacito vid, the former record holder, and has been watched a startling 7.04 billion times.

At the time of writing, Baby Shark and his toothy relatives have yet to remark upon their phenomenal success, or put forward their thoughts about why exactly a generation of youngsters have fallen so in love with the video’s retina-searing colours and fearsomely repetitive lyrics.

If the video isn’t yet burned into your memory for all eternity, you can remind yourself of it below:

The song itself – which I’m surprised to learn is just one minute and 21 seconds in length – introduces us to Baby Shark and the rest of the three-generation Shark family, before encouraging us to swim away from them.

However, time and again, fans appear to be swimming back to this video, which BBC News reports would have been streamed continuously for 30,187 years if played back-to-back. A harrowing prospect if ever there was one.

The origins of the song remain unclear, however it arose as a global phenomenon after it was recorded by 10-year-old Korean-American singer Hope Segoine and produced by educational company Pinkfong.

A viral sensation, it’s believed Pinkfong has raked in an approximate $5.2 million (£4million) from YouTube streams alone since the vid was first uploaded to YouTube back in 2015.

This is Baby Shark’s ocean, we just swim in it.

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