Blackpink kicked in the door with the release of “Pink Venom,” which has become the most-viewed music video on YouTube this year to date in the first 24 hours.
The K-pop powerhouse group’s dance-fueled video for girl-power anthem “Pink Venom” reached an impressive 86.2 million views within 24 hours after it dropped on YouTube at midnight ET Friday (1 p.m. KST), according to the video platform’s public views counter. It topped the 100-million view mark within 30 hours. Blackpink fans, aka “Blinks,” also gave “Pink Venom” 6 million likes on YouTube during the initial release window.
That makes “Pink Venom” No. 4 on the all-time YouTube 24-hour views rankings, just behind Blackpink’s own “How You Like That,” which reached 86.3 million views June 2020. The top two spots are still held by BTS, which last year racked up 108.2 million views for “Butter” in the first 24 hours and notched 101.1 million for “Dynamite” in 2020. Blackpink’s “Ice Cream,” featuring Selena Gomez, stands in fifth place with 79.0 million views in August 2020.
Note that YouTube’s official 24-hour view count for “Pink Venom” may be adjusted slightly, as the video giant has done in the past. But its status as the biggest music video premiere of 2022 seems safely in hand.
“Pink Venom,” a pop/rap track in Korean and English, is a pre-release single from Blackpink’s forthcoming album “Born Pink,” set to be released Sept. 16. One of the song’s in-your-face lyric: “Now it’s tonight, I’m a poisonous flower / After taking your soul” in Korean (자 오늘 밤이야 난 독을 품은 꽃 / 네 혼을 빼앗은 다음), followed by a nod to Taylor Swift in English: “Look what you made us do.” The song’s first few bars feature a geomungo, a traditional Korean stringed instrument.
YouTube likely helped drive up views of the music video with the #PinkVenomChallenge on YouTube Shorts, inviting fans to participate by creating and sharing their dance moves from the video using the short-form video feature. The #PinkVenomChallenge runs through Sept. 15.
Blackpink, whose four members are Jisoo, Jennie, Rosé and Lisa, are scheduled to perform at MTV’s Video Music Awards on Aug. 28. This fall, they will kick off their “Born Pink” world tour, running from Oct. 15 to June 21, 2023.
The YouTube 24-hour-views metric has become a measure of instant-hit popularity on YouTube among fans. In 2019, YouTube changed its view-tabulation methodology to exclude paid advertising views in the 24-hour counts, which the video platform said would best reflect authentic fan engagement.