VIDEO Korean 'Baby Shark' catches on in Britain
A screen capture of “Baby Shark” music video.
By Jung Hae-myoung, Park Si-soo
A “Korean baby shark” is terrifying its way up a leading British music chart.
“Baby Shark,” a Korean children's song released in 2015, climbed to 37th on the British Official Singles Chart Top 40 on Aug. 31, up 28 places from the week before.
It is the first Korean children's song to appear on the highly competitive chart, on which only a handful of K-pop headliners such as PSY and BTS have made it.
The song owes much of its success to a catchy melody and a colorful music video.
“This is amazing ― my little sister loves this song,” username Madeleine LeMay wrote below the official music video on YouTube.
The song's appeal goes way beyond children ― “Me, as a 30 year old, is addicted to this,” another YouTube user wrote.
Making its debut in 2015, Baby Shark's music video has garnered 3 billion viewers on YouTube, the highest viewership reached by a Korean children's song. Smart Study, a Samsung Publishing affiliate, produced the song to use in educational products and games for toddlers.
The song also went viral in Indonesia last year with “#
” in which parents and children uploaded videos of them dancing to the song.