Justin Bieber Breaks YouTube Record: Impressive or Depressing?

Alert the press! Call his mom! Justin Bieber has just broken another YouTube record!

OK, let's get this straight. Bieber's latest "record" is really more of a milestone than a record. As of this week, the 17-year-old pop star is the first person to breach two billion views on YouTube. Now, technically someone is breaking records around the clock since those numbers never go down. But the real news here is that Bieber still has a lot of friggin' views.

Two billion views. Think about it. Since "Baby" is his most-watched video, let's assume the average play time is 3:45. If you watched "Baby" two billion times in a row, it would take you more than 14,000 years. Of course, most people aren't watching the videos all the way through, so it's not like we've collectively wasted 14,000 years of human consciousness on "Baby." (Example: We had to load it twice to write this.)

But it's still a staggering number. Only seven other artists have more than a billion views on YouTube: Lady Gaga (1.88 billion), Rihanna (1.7), Eminem (1.51), Shakira (1.21), Black Eyed Peas (1.11), Britney Spears (1.01), and Beyonce (1 billion). Even Michael Jackson falls short at just over 800 million.

Meanwhile, Bieber's numbers could get even higher. He just released his second album, "Under the Mistletoe" (a Christmas album, don't laugh), and has a third, called "Believe," planned for next year. Maybe YouTube will instate a viewing cap to contain the madness.