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Videos Are Reaching One Billion Views On YouTube Faster And Faster

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Recently, Wiz Khalifa and Charlie Puth’s massive hit single “See You Again” hit a major milestone on YouTube as it joined the exclusive group of videos that have been watched at least one billion times. “Again” is just the tenth video to do so, and unsurprisingly, all of them are music videos, which as a category are responsible for the lion’s share of watches on the video-hosting platform. Having only been out for less than a year, it may seem surprising that the song has already hit one billion views, but it’s actually following a trend that shows that views on YouTube of big hits are on the upswing.

The first video to hit one billion was “Gangnam Style”, which really has to be counted as an outlier and a global phenomenon. After that, it was Justin Bieber’s debut hit “Baby”, which took several years to eventually got there. As of this spring, only those two songs had gotten as far as one billion hits, but since June, all that changed. As of this week, there are now ten videos in the billion-plus club, eight of which surpassed the mark in just the past few months.

According to YouTube, “Again” reached the 10-digit threshold faster than almost any track, being bested only by “Gangnam Style”. The song topped the charts earlier this year, and so the clip had just around six months to collect that many views. While the average length of time to one billion is 484 days, the three clips that have most recently joined the group of ten managed the feat in just under half that time (or 241 days).

It is no surprise that “See You Again” hit one billion views, it’s only shocking that it got there so quickly. The ode to late actor Paul Walker and Furious 7 soundtrack cut didn’t take long to find itself at number one in the US, and it remained there for twelve non-consecutive weeks, only stepping aside once to allow Taylor Swift’s “Bad Blood” to have its one frame in the sun.

So, while streaming services like Spotify, Pandora , Apple Music and the like are all growing in their number of users and how much time listeners spend on them, it is clear that not only is there still a place for YouTube, but that it is a serious player. The people obviously still want to watch music videos, and they want to do so on YouTube.

Here’s a full list of the ten music videos that have reached one billion views:

Psy - “Gangnam Style”

Justin Bieber - “Baby”

Taylor Swift - “Blank Space”

Katy Perry - “Dark Horse”

Katy Perry - “Roar”

Taylor Swift - “Shake It Off”

Enrique Iglesias - “Bailando (ft. Sean Paul, Descemer Bueno, and Gente de Zona)”

Meghan Trainor - “All About That Bass”

Mark Ronson - “Uptown Funk! (ft. Bruno Mars)”

Wiz Khalifa - “See You Again (ft. Charlie Puth)”