A decade after Baby Shark took over the internet, the boy at the centre of its viral dance is attempting a comeback as a K-pop singer.
Park Geon Roung, widely known as “Baby Shark Boy”, is releasing his debut digital single on 20 August, according to Business Korea.
Park, now 17, first appeared in the brightly coloured 2016 video for Baby Shark Dance, a children’s song popularised by the South Korean company Pinkfong and rooted in an old campfire chant.
The version that went global was sung by the then 10-year-old Korean-American singer Hope Segoine and featured two child performers, Park and New Zealand-born Elaine Kim Johnston.
Reworked into a short animated clip with simple choreography and repetitive lyrics about a family of sharks, the video spread rapidly on social media. Its “doo doo doo” hook and hand-chomp dance moves helped fuel a global craze, with the song gaining traction in Asia before spreading worldwide through viral challenges and repeated viewing among young children.
open image in galleryThe song appeared on the US Billboard Hot 100 in 2019, an unusual feat for a nursery-style track, and overtook Luis Fonsi and Daddy Yankee’s “Despacito” to become the most-viewed video on YouTube the following year. It went on to become the first video on the platform to surpass 10 billion views in 2022.
It subsequently expanded into a broader franchise featuring the character of Baby Shark alongside Mama, Papa, Grandma and Grandpa, including a Nickelodeon TV series, Baby Shark’s Big Show!, in addition to mobile apps, books, and merchandise.
Park’s new single, a Korean-language track titled “Wave”, will feature Joohoney of the K-pop group Monsta X and include lyrics co-written by Park himself.
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“I’ve always been grateful that people still remember a video I appeared in as a kid. Ten years ago I was dancing next to Baby Shark. Now, I wanted to share my own voice and a story I wrote myself,” Park said.
He hoped to “keep showing how I grow from here”, he said according to a statement released by The Pinkfong Company.
“This isn’t just about bringing back the boy from the video,” a representative of the company told The Korea Herald. “It’s about him telling his own story, and we want to carry that new beginning forward authentically.”
Pinkfong said Park’s song wouldn’t be treated as a typical K-pop idol debut and any future activities would depend on the response to the single.
Park made a brief return in 2025 through short-form videos marking the 10th anniversary of Baby Shark which collectively drew 22 million views.
In 2019, the American children’s performer Johnny Only, real name Jonathan Wright, filed a copyright lawsuit in South Korea claiming Pinkfong’s version had copied his 2011 recording, including its melody and the distinctive “doo doo doo” refrain. The claim was dismissed by a Seoul court in 2021, which ruled that both versions were based on a long-running traditional chant and that Pinkfong had not infringed copyright.