Pop teen beats Steve Jobs in Google's 2011 popularity contest Google has acknowledged the global dominance of arch-rivals Apple as the Chocolate Factory's 2011 Zeitgeist chart shows Apple placed not just once but three times in the internet popularity contest. Measuring the fastest rising search terms by popularity, the Zeitgeist charts track topics that got Google's global users into …
Rebecca Black going from zero to 10 million searches easily outperforms Steve going from 4 million to 10 million searches (numbers made up). If it was on percentage terms then the situation is even starker, obviously.
I'm sure Mr Jobs waa googled a lot through the whole year - so it's actually quite impressive he made the list at all.
I'd never heard of three of the five people mentioned. #1 is one of those who's apparently "famous for being famous" (but only in America), like those "Kardashian" people that we all thought were Star Trek characters. #7 is a karaoke-grade singer who wrote a half-decent song, and #9 is a narcissist who developed a God-complex by making shiny toys, then died because he refused medical treatment. I didn't even bother looking up #3 and #4.
The non-people thingies are just as uninspiring. #2 is Yet Another Social Network, for those who like every private detail of their life spread across the Internet, with the added bonus that it forbids you doing so anonymously. #5 is Yet Another Co-op Shooter designed to glamorise the US foreign policy of hostile invasion and regime change for the benefit of oil companies. #6 and #10 are shiny toys made (or rather just promoted) by the aforementioned narcissist, one of which is just vapourware, and the other is best known for trying to corner the market on such truly "inventive" concepts as "rounded rectangles" and "flat surfaces".
The only search term of any merit in that list is #8, an earthquake-induced Chernobyl-like disaster (almost).
If this list is truly representative of human interests, then I wish to make a formal application for a change of species, preferably not "Kardashian".
This shows how inconsequential the rest of the world is (as compared to the United States), that a meaningless nobody with a trivial song about her empty shallow life becomes No. 1. Indeed, only two results are from any other country - and one is related to a disaster of epic proportions.
It's all in how you look at it.
If I'm considered an over-sensitive, self-righteous and pompous ass to hope world plus dog might take preferential interest in something even a bit more important than some tone-deaf kid with an autotuner, fruit-themed toys and a war propaganda video game, then I'll proudly wear that t-shirt.
In fact I'm having it printed right now.
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