Statement about “Despacito” has been true for nine years

Wednesday, January 14, 2026

For all sufficiently late dates, “Despacito” has at least 0.001 of the number of views on the most viewed YouTube video. Specifically, this has been true since January 14, 2017 (January 13, midday), and it will never be false again. “Despacito” was released on January 13, 2017, at 05:00 UTC, when “Gangnam Style” was still #1 on YouTube. Take a look at this capture of “Gangnam Style” from when “Despacito” was 2 hours, 16 minutes old. It had 2,734,973,440 views.

“Despacito” had 5,140,000 views in 24 hours, so by the beginning of January 14, it was already at 0.002 of “Gangnam Style.”