Viral dance challenges always have an impact on the Billboard Hot 100 one way or another, but "Baby Shark" resurfacing on the chart right at the beginning of 2019 thanks to a new challenge wasn't exactly expected. As reported by Billboard, Pinkfong's version of the "Baby Shark" nursery rhyme-like children's song has entered the chart at No. 32.
The position is mostly thanks to a sudden boost in streaming growth as well as the drop-off of holiday tunes post-Christmas. "Baby Shark" earned 20.8 million streams for the week ending Jan. 3, peaking at an impressive No. 16 on the streaming songs chart. This is the first time the track has charted on the Hot 100, only just becoming eligible due to changes in how the chart operates. Pinkfong, a South Korean media company specializing in educational content for children, dropped the song in 2016.
The Baby Shark Challenge is as simple as it gets, with people just dancing in a similar way to the children in the original video. TikTok was reportedly a big contributor to the popularity of the challenge. While the resurfacing of the song as a dance craze could be one of the reasons for the boost in streams, another factor could be down to parents using the track to entertain their children over the holidays.
The song now has over 2 billion hits on YouTube, making it the 26th most-viewed video on the site at the current time of publishing. The only nursery rhyme-ish video to have more views is LittleBabyBum's "Wheels on the Bus."
If you were lucky enough to have missed when "Baby Shark" took over the world last year, check out the original viral video above.
Meanwhile, in other surprising Billboard chart entries starting off the year...
