Miley and More Miley: Celebs, Cats and Obamacare Dominate Yahoo Top Search Trends

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We are a celebrity-obsessed, chocolate chip cookie-loving, cat video-watching society, it would seem, and judging by what the majority is doing online. Yahoo has released its annual cultural barometer, consisting of the top search terms and trends for 2013, and it highlights a marked interest in escapism, it must be said.

Last year was dominated by the election season, but the 2013 Top 10 most-searched list contains no fewer than six celebs, all of them from the Young Hollywood set. Unsurprisingly, twerk-lovin’ Miley Cyrus topped the list—a spot undoubtedly won after her notorious turn at the VMAs. In fact, it was really the year of Miley: “What is twerking” was the most-asked “What” question on the site, non-coincidentally, and the lyrics to her song Wrecking Ball topped music searches.

The slow-and-steady winner though was Kim Kardashian, who dropped from No. 1 last year to the No. 2 spot, but had few challengers on the back of a long, persistent, year-long news cycle relating to a divorce, a marriage and the birth of North, her and Kanye West’s daugther.

Kate Upton, Selena Gomez, Amanda Bynes and Justin Bieber, in that order, rounded out the celebs in the top 10. The non-Hollywood items included Minecraft at No. 4, the building block-oriented sandbox game that has taken the elementary and middle school set by storm, Obamacare at No. 5 (no comment required) and, as a shock to no one, the iPhone 5 at No. 9.  Apple’s latest gadget was beaten out though by Jodi Arias, showing that true crime still sells.

Yahoo also decided to include Tumblr stats and trends in its year in review this time around. Politics was back on the agenda here with the Official White House Tumblr ranking No. 1 for top 10 new and notable blogs.

Greg Pembroke’s Reasons My Son Is Crying was the most viral blog on Tumblr this year—this chronicles parent-submitted pithy (usually humorous) statements on the fickle moods of their children. And the other viral blogs included the mysteriously and possibly disturbingly named Hot Dog Legs (No. 3) and a pair of cat-related blogs (classic!): Brides Throwing Cats (No. 6) and Yacht Cats (No. 9).

News searches were dominated by the Jodi Arias trial, Obamacare again, the Boston marathon bombing, royal baby birth, George Zimmerman trial, Syria, North Korea, the papal transition, Paula Deen and the Aaron Hernandez shooting.

Yahoo also outlines the things we’ve obsessed over for the year: “Your top obsession is America’s favorite bearded duck-calling family show, Duck Dynasty,” the company noted. “Breaking Bad found the recipe to get to the top and came in as the No. 2 obsession. But let’s not forget about our strategically angled, filtered self-portraits! The selfie came in at number nine on our list (just admit it — you love taking selfies!).”

Why yes. Yes we do.

For the remainder of the year, Yahoo predicts that Anchorman 2 will continue to trend. But the search company’s index also showed a certain amount of persistence: For instance, the top three sports teams searched were the Dallas Cowboys, the Boston Red Sox and the Green Bay Packers—old standbys in popularity. And chocolate chip was the No. 1 cookie searched on Yahoo in 2013—just as it likely has been for years.




Edited by Cassandra Tucker
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