How many times do you click “play” on a YouTube video? Don’t deny it – whether you’re minimizing the screen while listening to music in your cubicle or enduring yet another Harlem Shake rendition, YouTube is a large and very pervasive aspect of our everyday lives. In fact, not only was it revealed in a recent Mediabistro.com infographic that 30 hours of video are uploaded to YouTube every minute, but now, Google has officially revealed that the company has peaked at one billion unique monthly visitors – or approximately 15 percent of the world’s population.

I’m not sure if this is supposed to be impressive or just plain shocking. On the one hand, YouTube is extremely impressive in its ability to reach such an extensive user base and boast such a dominant global presence. On the other hand though, Google says that YouTube reaches half of all Internet users (one out of every two) and that its monthly viewership would rank it the planet’s third-largest country behind China and India.

 Image via Shutterstock

I don’t know about you, but it’s almost unfathomable to think just how far the Internet and social media/sharing have traveled within only a few short years (YouTube was founded eight years ago in 2005).

Some other notable facts about the video site – which was acquired by Google back in 2006 for $1.65 billion – include:

• Celebrating its first one-billion viewed video, PSY’s infamous “Gangnam Style,” knocking Justin Beiber out of the ranking.
• In May of 2011, the company launched its own weekly chart – the YouTube 100 – which was developed to track the popularity of music videos on the site.
• Just this week, YouTube launched a new channel/talent search competition in collaboration with notable “American Idol” vet and current “The X Factor” judge, Simon Cowell.

YouTube hosts a plethora of underrated videos gone viral over the years, such as “Ain’t Nobody Got Time for That,” a short clip from a news segment that was remixed and has spawned multiple videos (the highest ranking touts over 27 million views). If you haven’t seen it yet, go and take a moment to indulge yourself – you’re welcome.

Without a doubt, however, the highest ranking non-music video is “Charlie Bit My Finger,” which ranks at No. 6 on Wikipedia’s list of the most viewed YouTube videos, carrying a staggering 517,934,749 views. Every other video belongs to a musical artist – among the list include Eminem, Jennifer Lopez, LMFAO, Lady Gaga and Bruno Mars.

In the words of Ron Burgundy – it’s kind of a big deal.