Frank Kogan

Well, that prediction turns out to be somewhat wrong, and maybe we're blowing this thing up bigger than it is. Seventeen hours later the official vid (741,322 views) is indeed ready to pass the rehearsal vid (743,499), plus it's gotten on the news for topping the Melon video chart. And YouTube is probably lagging a bit with its numbers. But still, 28,000 new views in seventeen hours hardly qualifies as "viral." For all I know, "Bar Bar Bar" has peaked, though if high-profile performance opportunities open up and news sites continue to report the Melon triumph, there could be further surges or a breakout. Hoping.

Some commenters are calling "Bar Bar Bar"'s relatively late success (given its release over a month ago) "unprecedented," but I'm skeptical. How else can a song by a little-known group with a small promotion budget rise except from an initial slow build, as it gains an audience incrementally? So of course this won't match the flash-and-then-fade trajectory of tracks by idol groups who are already well-known or by the big-budget rookies whom everyone hears at once. I'd guess that Korean hip-hop hits by relative newbies also start with an initial slow build, though I don't have any information on this.