One. Billion. Views.
That’s the number which Nirvana’s classic, “Smells Like Teen Spirit,” currently possesses on YouTube.
The figure itself is quite hard to contemplate if you actually sit down and think about it. According to its definition, a billion equates to a thousand million, or 10 to the power of nine. The number is one-seventh of the global population, meaning that 1 in 7 people across the planet have watched Kurt Cobain belting out, “With the lights out, it’s less dangerous / Here we are now, entertain us / I feel stupid and contagious / Here we are now, entertain us.”
The song was released in 1991 and is still considered Nirvana’s biggest hit. The music video for the track was filmed in August of that year and takes place at a school concert that turns into a full-blown riot by the end of it. It was uploaded to YouTube in 2009, four years after the video site was founded.
Now, within a decade, the music video has managed to achieve over one billion views, becoming only the second video from the ‘90s to do so after “November Rain” by Guns ‘n Roses which has almost 1.3 billion views.
