The wildly popular "Gangnam Style" music video by Psy has gone where no YouTube video has gone before.
Earlier today, the official video surged past 1(1,011,995,729) billion views, making it the first clip on the site to ever hit that mark, and the latest in a long line of feats for the popular video.
Last month, "Gangnam Style" surpassed pop star Justin Bieber's "Baby" video tobecome the most popular YouTube upload of all time. Bieber's video, which at the time had 805 million views, was beaten in just five months. As of this writing, "Baby" has 813 million video views.
One industry watcher said the fact so many people continued to post their own versions of Gangnam Style had played a huge part in the clip's success.
"I've seen a statistic which reckons the one song will have generated something like $8m [£5m] by the end of the year from money that comes directly from YouTube through advertising plus download sales, its uses in adverts and TV programmes," Chris Cooke, business editor of the CMU music news site, told the BBC.
"It shows that YouTube - which is a free-to-use as a promotional platform for the music labels - can lead to substantial income.
"Should every artist be trying to think of a funny video that will go viral and be mimicked? I don't know whether it's a template that can be copied, but it certainly shows how quickly an eye-catching clip can spread thanks to social networks and YouTube."Sir Martin Sorrell - chief executive of advertising giant WPP - paid tribute to the achievement by making a link between Psy and one of the west's most influential economists.
"Another great example of Theodore Levitt's 'globalisation' and the power of K-pop," he told the BBC.
Scott Mills, the BBC Radio 1 DJ who championed the song on his show, said he was amazed by the phenomenon that the song had become.
"The thing that interests you in the video is the fact that you don't understand the lyrics.
D C Han, a South Korean hair stylist who worked in Gangnam before starting a business in London, added that he was proud to see the song become such a massive hit."Psy came into my Radio 1 show and The Guinness World Records presented him with a plaque for the most 'liked' YouTube video of all time and the amazing thing is he is just a guy, he hasn't tried to do any of this."
"I was amazed" he told the BBC.
"K-Pop is getting stronger and stronger, everywhere in Asia they are listening to it - China, Hong Kong, Taiwan. Maybe even in Japan but they might not admit it."