Forbes Deconstructs How 'Gangnam Style' Went Viral
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Forbes magazine has published an article titled "How Gangnam Style Has Britney Spears (And Everyone Else) Dancing with PSY from Korea". The article points to four reasons behind the global popularity of the rapper's hit song.
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"First, PSY is a genuine star", the reporter Anthony Wing Kosner wrote. "He's funny and personable, but also rhythmically acute". The second factor was the charm of the horse dance of "Gangnam Style". Kosner compared it to the Macarena. The dance is "easy to do badly, but requires a little skill to do well. Like the Macarena, which it resembles, this low barrier of entry makes it easy to get started with, but hard to let go of".
Thirdly, the "intergenerational appeal" of the song and the dance fuelled its popularity. As it is sung in Korean, the song is open to "interpretation (and mis-interpretation) in viral ways", which resulted in over 3,670 parodic videos on YouTube.