As we recover from the shooting of 26 children and adults in an elementary school in Newtown, Connecticut a week ago, I think it is important to reflect on another loss that occurred in 2012. Although it played out over the course of the year instead of in a paroxysm of violence, the impact of the video "Gangnam Style" by the South Korean rapper Psy can be considered tragic as well.
News agencies recently reported that the video has been viewed over one billion times on Youtube, the first video ever to reach that milestone on the site. Take one billion views, at 4.22 minutes per view, 525 600 minutes per year, and an average life expectancy of 78.2 years for an American (Americans are actually 37th in the international life expectancy ranking according to Wikipedia!). This arithmetic gives 103 lifetimes.
Some of the viewings tallied may have been groups of viewers and some may have been videos playing in the background while the computer user did other things. But many other views also must have occurred on other sites, making one billion views a good rough estimate. And the number of views is still rising. In other words, more lives will be taken by Gangnam Style in 2013 and beyond.
There is an unstated assumption here: that the video Gangnam Style is crap. One hundred and three lives were lost only in the sense that the time spent watching that stupid video is time that those people will never get back. But seeing the video at least helps one to get references here and there. And people will eventually get to a "look back and laugh" phase, as with the time when we all did the Macarena. So it’s not all bad.
Come to think of it, I watched it twice myself. And I want my eight minutes and 26 seconds back.
Included: me and a child I found
pseudoisaac 