Baby Shark facts for kids
Baby Shark is a super popular children's song with a fun dance. It started as a campfire song many years ago. In 2016, a company called Pinkfong made a new version. Their YouTube music video became a huge hit! It quickly spread across social media, online videos, and radio.
By January 2022, the Pinkfong video was the first YouTube video to reach 10 billion views. In November 2020, it became the most-viewed YouTube video of all time. As of August 2023, it has over 13 billion views!
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How Baby Shark Started
"Baby Shark" began as a campfire song or chant. People think it started way back in the 1900s. Maybe camp counselors made it up after watching the movie Jaws.
In the original song, each member of a shark family is introduced. Campers would use their hands to pretend they were shark jaws.
Many companies have made their own videos and recordings of the song. Some have even put their own trademark on toys and other items. However, the main song and its characters are believed to be free for everyone to use. This means they are in the public domain.
Early Popular Versions
A dance version of "Baby Shark" became popular in 2007. This was thanks to a YouTube video called "Kleiner Hai." That's German for Little Shark. Alexandra Müller, also known as Alemuel, published the video. It quickly became famous. A music company even offered Alemuel a record deal. The song reached number 25 on the German music charts. It also hit number 21 on the Austrian charts. This German version is still liked by youth groups in Germany. Many different versions have been made since then.
Johnny Only is a children's entertainer from Upstate New York. He used to be a DJ at a summer camp. The camp counselors often sang "Baby Shark" with the kids. Johnny saw how much the campers loved the song. So, when he became a full-time children's entertainer, he released his own version in 2011.
The Pinkfong Version
The song "Baby Shark" became super famous because of Pinkfong. Pinkfong is an education brand. It belongs to a South Korean company called SmartStudy. The first music video for "Baby Shark" was uploaded on November 26, 2015. This video did not have the child actors.
All of Pinkfong's "Baby Shark" videos had about 5 billion views by January 2020. The most popular video is "Baby Shark Dance." It was uploaded on June 17, 2016. This video went viral starting in 2017. On November 2, 2020, it became the most-viewed YouTube video ever. It passed Luis Fonsi's "Despacito" with 7.04 billion views. On December 21, 2020, it was the first YouTube video to get over 7.5 billion views. That's about the same as the world's population!
Who Sang and Danced?
A 10-year-old Korean-American singer named Hope Segoine sang this version. The music video shows two child actors. One of them is Elaine Johnston. She is a 9-year-old from New Zealand. She has both Korean and Scottish family roots.
The song starts with music that sounds like the movie Jaws. It features a family of sharks. They try to hunt a group of fish. But the fish manage to swim away to safety.
Global Popularity
The "Baby Shark Dance" video became a viral hit in Indonesia in 2017. After that, it spread to many other countries in Asia. It was especially popular in Southeast Asia. A mobile app related to the song was also very popular. It was one of the top 10 most downloaded family apps in South Korea, Bangladesh, Singapore, Hong Kong, and Indonesia in 2017.
"Baby Shark Dance" has over 12 billion views worldwide. It also has more than 38 million likes. It gets about 6.08 million views every day. This makes it the most-viewed video on YouTube.
Because of its huge popularity, "Baby Shark" even made it onto the music charts. The Billboard Hot 100 music charts started counting YouTube views in 2013. So, "Baby Shark" entered the Billboard Hot 100 at number 32 in January 2019.
The Baby Shark Challenge
The song's popularity led to an online dance craze. People sometimes call it the Baby Shark Challenge. Some have said it was "the next big thing" after "Gangnam Style" became famous. K-pop groups like Blackpink and Red Velvet helped spread the song even more. They performed the song and dance on their TV shows and at concerts. The song started to become viral in Western countries in August 2018.
Other Baby Shark Products
In 2019, it was announced that "Baby Shark" would become an animated TV show. It is called Baby Shark's Big Show!. This show is made for younger children. SmartStudy (the company that owns Pinkfong) teamed up with Nickelodeon. The show first aired in the United States in December 2020. In South Korea, the Educational Broadcasting System (EBS) shows the cartoon.
The English version of the song just names the shark family members. But the Korean version adds descriptions. Mommy Shark is "pretty," Daddy Shark is "strong." Grandma Shark is "kind," and Grandpa Shark is "cool."
In July 2019, Kellogg's announced a new Baby Shark cereal. It was a berry-flavored version of Froot Loops. It also had marshmallows! It first came out at Sam's Club stores in August. Then it was available at Walmart in late September.
In March 2020, Pinkfong released a new version of the song. This one helps kids learn to wash their hands properly. It was made during the COVID-19 pandemic.
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See also
In Spanish: Baby Shark para niños
