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“Baby Shark” Family Make Millions Off Viral Children’s Rhyme

By Violet Johnson
12 November 2019   |   12:18 pm
“Baby Shark, doo-doo doo-doo doo-doo.” It is amazing how this rhyme took the internet by storm mid 2018 and has dominated both online and offline. The baby shark rhyme was practically among the anthem for this year’s World Series, with tens of thousands of Washington Nationals fans clapping in unison and belting out. Also, In…

“Baby Shark, doo-doo doo-doo doo-doo.”

It is amazing how this rhyme took the internet by storm mid 2018 and has dominated both online and offline.

The baby shark rhyme was practically among the anthem for this year’s World Series, with tens of thousands of Washington Nationals fans clapping in unison and belting out.

Also, In Lebanon, it became a rallying cry after a video of protesters singing to soothe a frightened toddler went viral.

Asides the fact that it is unarguably catchy, the tune about a family of sharks has become so lucrative that the Korean family behind it is now sitting on a rapidly growing multi-million-dollar fortune.

Baby Shark scene | Photo: Asiancrush

Kim Min-seok co-founded SmartStudy Co. in 2010, and five years later its children’s educational brand, Pinkfong, released “Baby Shark.” His father runs Samsung Publishing Co., which also owns part of the startup. The family fortune, based on stakes held by Kim’s immediate relatives in those two companies, is now about $125 million — much of it thanks to the song.

Shares of Samsung Publishing soared 89% the week the World Series began as local media reported on the song’s surging popularity among U.S. baseball fans, Bloomberg reports.

Nationals outfielder Gerardo Parra began using it as his walk-up music, leading to crowd singalongs with shark-jaw gestures, scenes that echoed across TVs as the team broke out of an early season slump. They rode the wave all the way to the championship.

The app-to-video maker’s early days were tough, but eventually grew faster as the Baby Shark video became a sensation, Chief Financial Officer Seungkyu Lee said in a January interview.

Last year, the startup’s revenue jumped about 47% to 40 billion won ($34.3 million). The song has amassed more than 3.8 billion views on YouTube and this year reached the Billboard Hot 100 chart.

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