Despacito YouTube views

It is unsettling to contemplate a universe in which the view count of a Puerto Rican pop song and the population of a critically endangered whale share any kind of trajectory, and yet here we are. One has more views every day; the other has fewer members every year. The math is uncomfortable.

Despacito's view count kept compounding as YouTube became the default home-audio platform during lockdown, while the right whale population continued its slow decline due to ship strikes and entanglements — with 2020 figures partly a survey artifact because covid halted aerial and ship-based counts. One curve is automated growth on a streaming platform; the other is a species trying, and sometimes failing, to navigate around cargo ships.

So the correlation is the accidental juxtaposition of a number that cannot stop climbing and a number that cannot stop falling. Neither is watching the other. Only one of them has ears.