(Jake Turcotte)
Britney Spears beats Barack Obama
By Jimmy Orr | 12.02.08
Maybe John McCain should be taking lessons from Britney Spears.
The oft-troubled pop star did something this year that the Republican nominee for President failed to do — beat Barack Obama.
Oops, President Spears?
No, don’t panic, Spears did not win the presidency in any weird Florida-like hanging chad business. But she did top the President-elect this year in terms of overall online search — at least at Yahoo anyway.
Amazingly, Britney Spears was the most popular search term on Yahoo for the fourth year in a row. Get this — she’s been the top searched term in seven of the last eight years.
Zero to Hero
Why? Vera Chan, senior editor of Yahoo Buzz, told the BBC it’s all about redemption. The diva was a disaster in 2007 and has tried to overcome her monstrosity of troubles in 2008 — thus the continued interest.
“She was number one last year for all the wrong reasons, and this year for all the right reasons,” Ms Chan said.
“People like redemption tales. You can’t have a public meltdown that big and not have people follow you.”
There was buzz that Obama might top the charts this year. Nope. He came in third — sandwiched between WWE (World Wrestling Entertainment) and Miley Cyrus.
Filling out the top ten: the online game RuneScape in at number five, actress Jessica Alba (six), the cartoon series Naruto (seven), actresses Lindsay Lohan and Angelina Jolie (eight and nine), and reality TV talent show American Idol (ten).
Political searches
In terms of political figures, Obama was number one. Got a guess for number two?
Correct. The thrilla from Wasilla — Sarah Palin.
Now, Yahoo isn’t giving out specific figures so we don’t know how close Palin was to Obama, but we do know order of the top ten political figures searched:
1. Barack Obama
2. Sarah Palin
3. John McCain
4. Hillary Clinton
5. George Bush
6. Ron Paul
7. John Edwards
8. Mike Huckabee
9. Arnold Schwarzenegger
10. Mitt Romney
Pop love
Why does pop culture dominate search terms? Yahoo Buzz explains it this way:
“Britney or Runescape is not in the news everyday, so people go online for updates. George W. Bush, on the other hand, is in the news quite often, so people need fewer updates. Also, as a past spokesperson once explained, after you get to a level of fame, you don’t even have to do anything to maintain it.”
<< President-elect Obama sets record for media face time | MainComments
2. Shep | 12.02.08
> On the overall list Arnold Schwarzenegger comes in nine with only Obama ahead of him. How can he end up in nineth on the political list? He should be number two (or not be #9 overall). <
Good eye, Fredrik! You’re right. Something is amiss!
3. Darrell | 12.02.08
Where do you see that? Angelina Jolie got #9 overall, not arnold. according to the paragraph above it was:
1. Britney
2. WWE
3. Obama
4. Miley Cyrus
5. RuneScape
6. Jessica Alba
7. Naruto
8. Lindsey Lohan
9. Angelina Jolie
10. American Idol
4. Ha. | 12.02.08
Frederik and Shep didn’t realize that the list where Ahnold is #9 *IS* the political list.
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Jimmy Orr has worked in politics for the majority of his professional career working for two U.S. Senators, two Governors and one President. Most recently, Orr served as White House Spokesman and Internet Director for President George W. Bush and Special Advisor to Governor Schwarzenegger for Internet Communications.
David Cook is Washington bureau chief of The Christian Science Monitor and host of the Monitor's newsmaker breakfasts. He was the Monitor's editor from 1994 to 2001. Cook is a graduate of Principia College, served in the U.S. Army, was a Bagehot Fellow at Columbia University, and is a member of the Gridiron Club, Washington's oldest journalistic organization.
1. Fredrik | 12.02.08
There seems to be some real fuzzy statistics in play here. On the overall list Arnold Schwarzenegger comes in nine with only Obama ahead of him. How can he end up in nineth on the political list? He should be number two (or not be #9 overall).