Why That Song Won't Leave Your Head

The 17-billion-view doo doo doo

The Pinkfong Baby Shark video, uploaded back in 2016, has passed 17 billion views on YouTube. It has held the number one spot on the whole platform for years now. A Korean children's song became the most watched video in the world.

Recently it made the rounds again when news broke that the kid from that video is debuting as a singer, ten years later. And you probably had the song playing in your head from the title of this article alone.

Here is the funny part: nobody sat down and memorized this song on purpose. Yet everyone can sing it. How does that even happen?

An earworm is not a worm

Psychologists call it an earworm when a snippet of a song loops in your head all day. The formal name is involuntary musical imagery. In other words, music that plays itself without you pressing anything.

Catchy songs share a formula. An upbeat tempo, a melody simple enough to hum along to, and one little moment that breaks the pattern you expected. The second your brain goes "wait, what was that," the song gets added to the playlist.

Baby Shark is a textbook example. The same melody repeats endlessly with only the family member changing. Add the dance moves and your body memorizes it too. There is no way out.

Korea's exam banned songs meme

Korea has a meme just for this: the Suneung banned song, named after the national college entrance exam. Listen to one at the wrong time and it starts playing in your head during the listening test, or so the stories go. SHINee's Ring Ding Dong is the all-time champion, and new candidates join the list every year.

The funny thing is, the list works as a badge of honor. Getting named an exam banned song means your hook is so catchy that nobody can shake it off. It is proof of an unforgettable chorus.

How to hit the stop button

Researchers have actually studied how to get rid of earworms. The first trick is chewing gum. It keeps your mouth and tongue busy, which makes it harder to sing along in your head, and one experiment found the loop fades as a result.

The second trick sounds backwards: listen to the whole song, start to finish. Your brain holds on to unfinished business, so if only the chorus is looping, filling in the rest gives it a proper ending.

The last trick is keeping your brain moderately busy. Something too easy will not work; you want just enough focus, like memorizing colors or sequences. DoYouBox happens to have a Simon game where you memorize color and sound patterns, though if those beeps get stuck in your head instead, that one is on you.