Most Viewed YouTube Videos — Can You Guess #1? (2005–2026)

Most viewed YouTube videos of all time every year from 2005 to 2026, animated month by month. Watch 17 iconic videos race from zero to billions of views across 20 years of internet history. Which video wins? The answer will genuinely surprise you. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ WHAT YOU'LL SEE This bar chart race tracks cumulative YouTube views for 17 of the most iconic videos ever uploaded from the very first viral hits of 2005 right through to May 2026. Every overtake, every surge, every record-breaking moment is here in real numbers. The race features: 🎵 Baby Shark Dance (Pinkfong) 🎵 Despacito (Luis Fonsi) 🎵 Shape of You (Ed Sheeran) 🎵 See You Again (Wiz Khalifa) 🎵 Uptown Funk (Mark Ronson) 🎵 Baby (Justin Bieber) 🎵 Gangnam Style (PSY) 🎵 Bad Romance (Lady Gaga) 📺 Cocomelon · LooLoo Kids · ChuChu TV · Masha and the Bear 😂 Charlie Bit My Finger · Evolution of Dance · Nike Ronaldinho Key moments to watch for: 2005 — Nike Ronaldinho kicks off the race with 1 million views 2007 — Evolution of Dance becomes the most watched video on Earth 2009 — Lady Gaga and Justin Bieber arrive and change everything 2012 — PSY's Gangnam Style hits 1 BILLION views — a historic first 2015 — Wiz Khalifa's See You Again briefly takes the top spot 2017 — Despacito shatters every record with 5 billion in one year 2017 — Ed Sheeran's Shape of You enters and climbs instantly 2019 — Baby Shark overtakes Despacito to become #1 of all time 2026 — Final result: 16.6 billion views 🏆 Which video do you remember watching first? Tell us in the comments below. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ TIMESTAMPS 00:00 2006 — YouTube views race begins (Evolution of Dance leads) 00:14 2006 — Evolution of Dance hits 10M views 00:28 2007 — Evolution of Dance hits 50M views 00:42 2008 — Charlie Bit My Finger goes global (50M views) 00:57 2009 — Lady Gaga takes #1 most viewed spot 01:11 2010 — Justin Bieber takes #1 most viewed spot 01:25 2011 — Justin Bieber hits 500M views 01:40 2012 — PSY takes #1 most viewed spot 01:54 2013 — Masha and the Bear goes viral (100M views) 02:08 2014 — PSY hits 2B views 02:22 2015 — Wiz Khalifa hits 1B views 02:37 2016 — Masha and the Bear passes Katy Perry 02:51 2017 — Wiz Khalifa takes #1 most viewed spot 03:05 2018 — Luis Fonsi takes #1 most viewed spot 03:20 2019 — Pinkfong rises (Baby Shark explosion begins) 03:34 2020 — Pinkfong takes #1 most viewed spot 03:48 2021 — YouTube leaderboard shifts (top 3 changes) 04:02 2022 — Cocomelon hits 2B views 04:17 2023 — LooLoo Kids passes Ed Sheeran 04:31 2024 — Cocomelon overtakes Ed Sheeran 04:45 2025 — Cocomelon rises higher in rankings 05:00 Final — Pinkfong becomes most viewed video ever (16.6B) 🏆 ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ DATA & SOURCES Cumulative YouTube view counts per video, 2005–2026. Based on verified annual view data from YouTube official statistics, Wikipedia's list of most viewed YouTube videos, and Social Blade historical records. Monthly figures are interpolated from verified annual totals. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ New bar chart race every week subscribe and never miss one. #MostViewedYouTubeVideos #BarChartRace #BabyShark #YouTubeHistory #Despacito #DataVisualization #FutureRanked