Only a handful of music videos have reached one billion YouTube views. Here’s how long it took each one:
Justin Bieber, ‘Baby’ (released 2010): 4 years, 10 days.
Rihanna, ‘Love the Way You Lie’ (2010): 5 years, 163 days.
LMFAO, ‘Party Rock Anthem’ (2011): 4 years, 291 days.
PSY, ‘Gangnam Style’ (2012): 58 days.
Katy Perry, ‘Roar’ (2013): 1 year, 319 days.
Sia, ‘Chandelier’ (2014): 1 year, 202 days.
Meghan Trainor, ‘All About That Bass’ (2014): 1 year, 80 days.
Enrique Iglesias, ‘Bailando’ (2014): 1 year, 125 days.
One Republic, ‘Counting Stars’ (2013): 2 years, 154 days.
Katy Perry, ‘Dark Horse’ (2013): 1 year, 121 days.
Major Lazer featuring MØ, ‘Lean On’ (2015): 290 days.
Wiz Khalifa, ‘See You Again’ (2015): 181 days.
Mark Ronson feat. Bruno Mars, ‘Uptown Funk’ (2014): 298 days.
Adele, ‘Hello’ (2015): 87 days.
Maroon 5, ‘Sugar’ (2015): 1 year, 3 days.
Taylor Swift, ‘Blank Space’ (2014): 236 days.
Graph source: YouTube.
It takes exactly 3 licks to get the center of a Tootsie Roll pop, so it must take 4 months, 1 week, 6 days, 47 minutes and 29 seconds for a video to reach 1 billion views on YouTube.
How much does it cost to buy 1 billion views? Everyone knows these numbers are jacked.
First criterion seems to be “make horrible music”?