britney FRICKIN' spears
Never, ever did I think I'd mention anything Britney-related, but this has more to do with the general decline of American culture than anything else. I think.
The
2004 Year-End Google Zeitgeist is out. For the SECOND YEAR IN A ROW, the number one query overall, in Google proper (as opposed to Google News), is BRITNEY SPEARS.
I am so sad.
The top 10 most popular queries of 2004 (in the US):
1. britney spears
2. paris hilton
3. christina aguilera
4. pamela anderson
5. chat
6. games
7. carmen electra
8. orlando bloom
9. harry potter
10. mp3
Sigh. At least the Top 10 Queries of Google News (in the US) are slightly (and I mean really, really slightly) better:
1. george w bush
2. janet jackson
3. john kerry
4. britney spears
5. saddam hussein
6. kobe bryant
7. michael jackson
8. angelina jolie
9. martha stewart
10. clay aiken
So yeah, Dems? Our man was less-searched-for than Janet Jackson.
The
International Zeitgeist shows that our European counterparts search for [better? utilitarian? less Britney-related?] things, like telephone books and maps and football (aka "soccer"). Australia likes Paris Hilton. Canada is very TV-oriented. Korea digs Maria Sharapova. China likes pop music and the Olympics. Japan also likes maps, and wallpaper (as do the Russians). I believe we're talking the computer kind, not the glue-to-your-wall kind. And the UK? News. BBC News was the top query (question? how difficult is it to remember news.bbc.co.uk? isn't that like using google to search for "google"?).
So there you have it. In the US, "iraq" is only popular as a "country query" and as a news query, it's either number one or number two in Australia, Canada, Italy and the UK.
But we have Britney.
oy
