Baby Shark child star is launching a new career more than 10 years after finding fame
Are we about to witness the most unexpected comeback in pop history?
There was a time when you couldn’t go online, or, go anywhere at all, without hearing the Baby Shark song. It was playing on tablets, blasting from phones, and echoing around living rooms and grocery stores.
Baby Shark was everywhere, and once that “doo doo doo doo doo doo” got into your head, it never left.
The boy who starred in the song’s colorful video is now making a comeback and he has the K-pop world in his sight.
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Park Geon Roung, known as “Baby Shark Boy”, is set to release his debut single on August 20, according to the Korea Herald.
Now 17, he appeared in the viral clip a decade ago. The children’s song was popularized by the South Korean company Pinkfong and was inspired by an old chant popular at campfires.
The version that we’ve all heard was sung by then 10-year-old Korean-American singer Hope Segoine and included two child performances; Park, and Elaine Kim Johnston from New Zealand.
The song was a huge hit and charted on the US Billboard Hot 100 at 32 and the UK Singles Chart at 6.
It launched its own Baby Shark franchise, with a Nickelodeon TV series, mobile apps, books and toys.
The jingle has even had its own brush with the law. In 2019, American children’s performer Jonathan Wright, who performs as Johnny Only, sued Pinkfong in South Korea, claiming its version of Baby Shark copied his 2011 recording. Wright argued that his version contained original elements that Pinkfong had reproduced.
The Seoul Central District Court rejected his claim in 2021, finding that Wright’s version was itself based on a traditional children’s song and was not sufficiently original to warrant copyright protection. The decision was upheld on appeal in 2023, before South Korea’s Supreme Court put the matter to rest in 2025, ruling that Pinkfong’s version had not infringed Wright’s copyright.
Park is now expanding his music career and will make his debut later this month with a Korean-language single called “Wave”.
The song will feature Joohoney, from the popular Kpop boyband Monsta X and Park co-wrote the track himself.
“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 in a statement, per The Korea Herald.
“This isn’t just about bringing back the boy from the video,” a representative of the company told the publication. “It’s about him telling his own story, and we want to carry that new beginning forward authentically.”
Greg Harris