PSY's 'Gentleman' video passes 100 million views on its fourth day

By Ray Rahman
Published on April 16, 2013 08:40PM EDT
PSY Gentleman Video

Around this time last year, PSY was strictly a Korean concern. No more: the international sensation now has another viral hit on his hands with the “Gentleman” video, which has amassed more than 100 million views on only its fourth day on YouTube.

The fast success of “Gentleman,” which was released on Saturday, far outstrips the initial performance of “Gangnam Style,” which hit YouTube on July 15 of last year and didn’t pass the 100-million mark until Sept. 4. And while it’s been panned by many critics, “Gentleman” seems to be fairly well-liked: the video’s YouTube page has more than a million thumbs-ups from viewers, while the number of thumbs-downs had yet to top 200,000 at the time of this post.

The new clip, Reuters reports, racked up more than 20 million hits in the 24 hours following its release — unprecedented for a music video. (Bieber’s “Boyfriend,” for comparison, held the previous record by earning 8 million views on the day of its debut.)

Of course, “Gentleman” still has a long way to go before it can overtake “Gangnam Style,” which famously became the first YouTube video to surpass a billion views last December. In fact, that number has since risen above the 1.5 billion mark, giving it a secure lead as YouTube’s most-viewed video of all time. Yet “Gentleman” still has a chance: A Wall Street Journal analysis predicts that the new video has a fair shot at reaching the one-billion milestone even faster than “Gangnam Style” did.

But those two songs aren’t PSY’s only online hits. On YouTube’s chart of its most-viewed videos, PSY’s collaboration with fellow K-pop star HyunA ranks at No. 19 with more than 330 million views. The man, it seems, is on a roll.

So since everybody else is doing it, why don’t you give in and be the 100,000,001st person to view PSY’s “Gentleman” video, conveniently embedded below? Come on, you know you want to:

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