Baby Shark
Children's song
"Baby Shark" is a children's song and YouTube music video associated with a dance involving hand movements, dating back to the late 20th century. "Baby Shark" became popular when Pinkfong, a South Korean entertainment company, released a version of the song on June 17, 2016, with a YouTube Music video which went viral on social media, in online videos, and on the radio. In November 2020, Pinkfong's version became the most-viewed YouTube video of all time, after gaining 7.04 billion views. In January 2022, it became the first YouTube video to reach 10 billion views.
History
Origins
The original song dates back to the 20th century. Various entities have tried to copyright original videos and sound recordings of the song, but according to The New York Times, the underlying song and characters are believed to be in the public domain, as the song has been a popular camp sing-along for decades.
A dance version of "Baby Shark" was popularized in the 2007 YouTube video "Kleiner Hai" (German for Little Shark) published by Alexandra Müller, also known by her stage name Alemuel. This version, set to the theme of Jaws, tells the story of a baby shark who grows up and eats a swimmer. The video quickly gained popularity. The single peaked at 25th in the German charts and at 21st in the Austrian charts.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Baby Shark” as children's song. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
Why this record matters
The subject matters to the arts & letters register because the source frames it as children's song. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.
Object files, edition statements, performance records and contemporary criticism preserve different stages of the work’s history. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 24, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q48791055. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 2016, 2020, 2022 and 2007.
Rights, attribution and provenance may remain disputed even when a general reference summary presents a stable account. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Separate the work, its editions or performances, and its later reception. Catalogue records, publication histories and object files often preserve different parts of that story.
- Identifying works and editions
- Tracing reception history
- Finding collection records
The original object or edition, catalogue raisonné, performance record, rights file and holding institution.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “Baby Shark”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow Baby Shark primary sources, Baby Shark archive and Baby research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
- Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Baby Shark”?
- Where is authorship, date or provenance documented?
- Which edition, object, performance or recording is being described?
Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “Baby Shark” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.