Courtesy of tech-wd.com
Sorry Kim Kardashian, Psy has officially broken the internet. The South Korean sensation’s horse-galloping music video for “Gangnam Style” exceeded YouTube’s view limit this week, forcing the site to upgrade its counter.
Psy’s 2012 viral hit has greatly surpassed Justin Bieber’s “Baby” as the most-watched video on YouTube. “Gangnam Style” has 2,155,390,432 views at the time of writing, and will have even more by the time you finish reading this sentence.
YouTube owner Google has now had to change the maximum view limit to 9,223,372,036,854,775,808, more than nine quintillion. If you want to impress someone at a cocktail party, that number is pronounced as nine quintillion, two hundred and twenty-three quadrillion, three hundred and seventy-two trillion, thirty-six billion, eight hundred and fifty-four million, seven hundred and seventy-five thousand, eight hundred and eight.
“We never thought a video would be watched in numbers greater than a 32-bit integer, but that was before we met Psy,” Google wrote in a statement this week.
An integer is a unit used to represent data in computer architecture. YouTube previously used a 32-bit one, which means the maximum possible views it could handle was 2,147,483,647. They have now switched to a 64-bit integer, so artists will have to battle it out in the 9 quintillions if they want to freak out the site again.
Although, according to Google’s engineers, the counter was never actually broken. “We saw this coming a couple months ago and updated our systems to prepare for it.”
Psy has not yet commented on the milestone, though the news was posted to his social media accounts. If you hover over the video’s view count, you can now see an animated effect on the numbers, which Google has described as “a little math magic.”
After “Gangnam Style” and Bieber’s “Baby” (which has 1,117,727,212 views to date), the other top-viewed music videos on YouTube include “On the Floor” by Jennifer Lopez feat. Pitbull (795,695,626), “Party Rock Anthem” by LMFAO feat. Lauren Bennett and GoonRock (781,652,669), “Waka Waka” by Shakira feat. Freshlyground (777,524,771), and “Love the Way You Lie” by Eminem feat. Rihanna (775,284,285). Psy makes another appearance in the top ten with “Gentleman” (763,222,372) topping “Wrecking Ball” by Miley Cyrus (727,953,394) and “Roar” by Katy Perry (716,748,949).
