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Psy's pop hit "Gangnam Style" actually broke the Internet this week.
More than two years after the Korean dance hit's video debuted, it reached the maximum possible view count on YouTube. Keep your eyes on the view counter, which spins out of control (see GIF).
YouTube has long known any video with views greater than 2,147,483,647 — also known as INT_MAX to programmers — on the service would cause an error.
"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," YouTube wrote in statement. "
'Gangnam Style' has been viewed so many times we had to upgrade to a 64-bit integer (9,223,372,036,854,775,808)."
"Gangnam Style" became the first video in history to reach 1 billion YouTube views in December 2012.
The video then galloped past 2 billion views in May 2014.
Sometime earlier this week it reached the 32-integer threshold. Now YouTube is upping its game, switching to a 64-bit system that will allow for many more views.
How long it'll take to reach that next threshold is anybody's guess — but one estimate puts it in the realm of 4 billion years.
Of course, that could all change when the next Psy comes along to break the Internet.
Brian Hernandez
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