An early metric of a video's popularity was the so-called Billion-View Club, denoting videos which had succeeded in reaching over 1 billion views since their initial upload. In December 2012, "
Gangnam Style" became the first video to reach one billion views. By June 2015, only "
Baby" had also managed to pass this threshold, but, by October 2015, a total of ten videos had done so, Older videos that pre-dated the launch of YouTube in 2005 but were added later to pass a billion views are as follow: • "
November Rain" by
Guns N' Roses became the first video made prior to 2005, YouTube's foundation year, to reach this threshold by July 2018. • "
Numb" by
Linkin Park was the first 2000s video predating YouTube to reach 1 billion views in November 2018. • "
Bohemian Rhapsody" by
Queen was the first 1970s video (and pre-1990s video) to reach 1 billion views in July 2019. • "
Sweet Child o' Mine" by Guns N' Roses was the first 1980s video to reach 1 billion views in October 2019. • "
Zombie" by
The Cranberries was the first female sung pre-2005 video to reach 1 billion views in April 2020. With numerous videos readily clearing one billion views by 2018, more interest has been on two- and three-billion-views-and-higher metrics. In May 2014, "Gangnam Style" became the first video to exceed two billion views. "
Despacito" became the first video to reach three billion views in August 2017, four billion in October 2017, five billion in April 2018, six billion in February 2019, and seven billion in October 2020. "
Baby Shark Dance" became the first video to reach eight billion views in February 2021, nine billion views in July 2021, and ten billion views in January 2022. "
See You Again" became the second video to reach three billion views in August 2017, followed by "Gangnam Style" in November 2017. "
Shape of You" became the second video to reach four billion views in January 2019, followed by "See You Again" in February 2019. "
Baby Shark Dance" became the second video to reach five billion views in April 2020, followed by "Shape of You" in October 2020. "Baby Shark Dance" became the second video to reach six billion views in July 2020, and seven billion views in October 2020. The majority of these videos in the Billion-View Club have been commercial
music videos by popular artists, but the list has included oddities, typically programs aimed at children. Such videos include two episodes of the Russian animated cartoon
Masha and the Bear, a version of "
The Wheels on the Bus" by the British animation studio
Little Baby Bum, and "
Johnny Johnny Yes Papa" from children's stations LooLoo Kids and
ChuChu TV. Various versions of the song "
Baby Shark" in total amassed more than five billion views by January 2019, with the original version posted by
Pinkfong having exceeded two billion views previously. The original "Baby Shark" video by Pinkfong is now the most viewed video on the site. On October 29, 2020, Baby Shark surpassed 7 billion views, and on November 2, 2020, it passed Despacito to become the most viewed video on YouTube. On February 23, 2021, Baby Shark surpassed 8 billion views, becoming the first video to do so. On July 20, 2021, Baby Shark surpassed 9 billion views, becoming the first (and currently only) video to do so. On January 13, 2022, Baby Shark became the first (and currently only) video to surpass 10 billion views. On April 1, 2024, the communications app
Discord incorporated a short trailer video into their in-app
April Fools' Day prank regarding
loot boxes. The video automatically looped for anyone with Discord open, even if the notification had not been opened yet. This had the inadvertent effect of massively increasing the trailer's view count, causing it to reach a billion views in less than 24 hours and becoming the most-viewed video in that timeframe on the platform, surpassing
Grand Theft Auto VI trailer which gained over 90 million views in a single day. The video later had its view count adjusted to the low millions. ==Historical most-viewed videos==