The other night I chaperoned a Halloween disco. Picture it: the school canteen, balloons being volleyed around by 12-year-olds, teenage girls dressed as cats and devils, and an ancient laptop blaring a millennial playlist. Carly Rae Jepsen came on. The Killers came on. Everyone sang, everyone screamed.
And then it happened.
Within seconds, the room formed a circle. Kids who weren’t even alive in 2012 threw themselves into the horse-riding dance, shouting “Oppa!” at the top of their lungs.
And it took me straight back. Back to 2012, when my sister and I went to Zumba at uni. Sandy Zumba was a total craze. You had to get there early to ensure you had enough space to drop it low and pick it up slow. Eventually the class was so packed it had to be moved into a nightclub, complete with disco lights. The instructor bounced on stage in day-glo leggings, and when Gangnam Style dropped, the floor turned into a Tuesday-night rave.
That’s the thing about Gangnam Style. It was a viral moment that has persisted over a decade. It was fun. Unhinged.
Gangnam Style: The Song That Broke YouTube
2012 was the year the internet truly became global pop culture, and Gangnam Style was its banner anthem. Before TikTok trends, before K-pop was a household name, there was Psy (a slightly goofy, sunglasses-wearing Korean rapper galloping across YouTube).
The video dropped in July, and by December it had smashed one billion views, the first YouTube video in history to ever do it. That number was so big the platform literally had to upgrade its counter. Suddenly everyone from your mum to your maths teacher was talking about views, not sales or charts.
And it wasn’t just online. The song bled into every part of 2012 culture. Flash mobs broke out in shopping centres. Sports stadiums blasted it at half-time. Politicians, from David Cameron to Barack Obama, claimed they’d been shown the dance. Even Ban Ki-Moon, then UN Secretary General, called Psy a “force for world peace.” (Imagine being told your horse-riding dance routine was a diplomatic asset.)
What made it work was the sheer joy of it. It was ridiculous, catchy, and impossible to ignore. It was dumb. For most people, it was also their first real brush with Korean pop music.
Suddenly, K-pop wasn’t just a niche for fans swapping bootleg CDs or YouTube links; it was on every screen, in every club, at every school disco.
This chart from Google Trends shows it perfectly:
Psy opened the door for a whole wave of K-pop, even if BTS and Blackpink would later stride through it with a lot more polish.
Gangnam Style was proof that the internet could make something global overnight. And in 2012, it felt like the most exciting thing that had ever happened online.
The Legacy of Gangnam Style in 2025
Flash forward to now, and Gangnam Style still works. At that Halloween disco, I watched twelve-year-olds (kids who weren’t even born when the video dropped) instinctively gather in a circle and do the moves. They didn’t know the sideways shuffle properly, but the horse-riding gallop? Eternal.
That’s the magic of it. Some songs are bound to their moment. They age, they fade. But Gangnam Style has crossed into folk memory territory. It’s like YMCA, the Macarena, or the Cha Cha Slide: you don’t need to know the words, you just need to know the dance.
It’s also a reminder of a sweeter internet. Before TikTok was flooded with “content strategy” and brand challenges, there was Psy in his blue tux, making us laugh. Before algorithms decided what went viral, people just… shared it. Passed it on. Watched it again.
“In 2012, I experienced so many things; it’s been a tremendous year, but to accomplish this, it’s really something that stands out. Because it all began with YouTube, and to have [the video] reach 1 billion views … I don’t think even I can break that record!”
Wasn’t that what 2020 showed us in lock down? That was year of people being stuck in the house and taking up filming themselves dancing. People like being united, having a shared experience.
In 2025, we need that. A song that doesn’t divide, doesn’t posture, doesn’t sell you anything. It just gets you out of your chair and galloping like an idiot with everyone else in the room.
Gangnam Style wasn’t just a viral video. It was the moment the internet stopped being niche and became the stage. And a decade later, it still has the power to bring a school canteen full of kids (and one nostalgic millennial teacher) to their feet.
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