BTS song 'Dynamite' achieves rare feat of surpassing 1 billion YouTube views

Christi Carras
·2 min read

BTS' "Dynamite" is lighting up YouTube like, well, dynamite.

On Monday morning, the music video for the South Korean supergroup's hit single surpassed 1 billion views — a rare feat achieved by only a handful of musicians and content creators on the platform. The milestone comes several months after the pop stars' first track recorded entirely in English debuted in August atop the Billboard Hot 100 chart.

At press time, the colorful, carefree video had exceeded a billion views by about 3 million, joining an elite club that also includes One Direction's "What Makes You Beautiful" (1.2 billion), Ed Sheeran's "Shape of You" (5.2 billion), Luis Fonsi and Daddy Yankee's "Despacito" (7.2 billion), and Pinkfong's "Baby Shark Dance" (8.3 billion).

According to YouTube, "Dynamite's" explosive summer release marked the most successful music-video debut in the platform's history, racking up 101.1 million views within 24 hours. A record-shattering 3 million viewers also tuned in live for the video's YouTube premiere.

Last year, the pop sensation ranked among YouTube's top 10 most-viewed artists, as well as the top 10 artists with the most subscribers on the platform at 47 million. The group also lays claim to four out of 10 of the platform's biggest music-video openings of all time.

Also boasting more than a billion streams are two other blockbuster BTS bops: 2019's "Boys With Luv," featuring Halsey (1.1 billion) and 2017's "DNA" (1.2 billion). Here's a sampling of celebratory tweets from the band's ARMY fanbase.

This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.