Numb

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Details

Music Video

Directed by band member Joe Hahn, the indoor scenes of the music video are set in St. Vitus Cathedral in Prague, Czech Republic. The outdoor scenes were also shot in Prague; the school interiors, the classroom, the corridor, and the outside playground are set in Johannes Kepler Grammar School (Gymnázium Jana Keplera). The bridge scenes were all shot on Prague's famed Charles Bridge. The video was shot over June 2003,[13] even though vocalist Chester Bennington was suffering from severe abdominal and back pains at the time, so the band's performance was filmed afterwards in a matching cathedral in Los Angeles.[14][13] The final video was released within the release of the single early September 2003.[15] The video follows the domestic and social problems faced during a day in the life of an unpopular outcast young female student (portrayed by Briana Evigan). The girl apparently spends much of her time drawing pictures, revealing that she probably has dreams of becoming an artist. She is largely shunned and ridiculed at school, considering that when she is told off by the chemistry lecturer for drawing in class almost everybody laughs at her and teases her, and when she trips on the stairs nobody stops to help her up and that when she tries to join a group of girls at a lunch table they immediately get up and leave. There are also self-inflicted cut marks on her arms, which spell out "NUMB". During the song's climax, she is shown in her room, as she ties up her hair with a paintbrush, and throws paint at a canvas in anger. At the end, she runs into the church that the band was playing in, almost as if she heard them, only to find that the band is not there anymore. In November 2018, the music video for the song became the band's first video to reach over one billion views on their YouTube channel.[16] In March 2023, the video was remastered in 4K resolution. In June 2023, "Numb" became the first song by the band to surpass two billion views on YouTube and currently holds the title of the most viewed rock video on the platform.[17] As of November 2023, the music video for "Numb" has over 2.1 billion views and 13 million likes on the platform.

Chart History (33 weeks)