Gangnam Style 'breaks' YouTube views counter

Remember "Gangnam Style," PSY's monster hit in 2012? Google's YouTube definitely won't forget it, because the video just broke its views counter.

 

YouTube, in a Google+ post, said the video had been viewed so many times it had to upgrade to a 64-bit integer from the 32-bit integer it previously used.

As of 5:49 a.m. Thursday, "Gangnam Style" had 2,152,814,218 views.

 

"We never thought a video would be watched in numbers greater than a 32-bit integer (=2,147,483,647 views), but that was before we met PSY. "Gangnam Style" has been viewed so many times we had to upgrade to a 64-bit integer (9,223,372,036,854,775,808)!"  YouTube said.

 

PC World said "Gangnam Style" officially became the first video to break YouTube's hit counter, which previously maxes out at 2,147,483,647 views.

 

"The count stalled out when it hit that magic number, but fear not: YouTube’s code elves got to work and a fix already appears to be in place," it said.

 

But YouTube has left an Easter egg over the old counter - hovering the cursor over it will cause it to "freak out" before displaying the number of hits.

 

Last May 31, "Gangnam Style" passed the two-billion view mark on YouTube, which celebrated the milestone with an animation.  — Joel Locsin/ELR/TJD, GMA News