The Philippines Searched for Sex Scandals, Beauty Queens, and KPop in 2013

Vince

11 years ago

With 2013 coming to an end, search engine giant Google reveals the most “searched” terms in the Philippines.

To sum it up – it’s tech, sex scandals, KPop, and beauty queens.

In this Internet generation, when a celebrity dies, news and rumors of it breaks out first through social media. It will then spread rapidly and then get picked up by traditional media outlets. Such is the case of all the celebrities who died this year, with Paul Walker topping Google’s list as the most searched term and person in the Philippines.

Paul Walker and the People Category

Paul Walker is perhaps most remembered as the star in the Fast and Furious movie franchise. The movie is so popular in the Philippines – perhaps the reason why the 6th movie in the series had its Asian premiere in Manila this year. Vin Diesel even considered doing his next film in the country.

In the overall search category, the Fast and Furious star beat a pool of tech trends, like the Samsung Galaxy S4 and the iPhone 5s. Walker also beat out another person who passed away this year – Cory Monteith.

2013 Philippine Top Overall Search Category

1. Paul Walker
2. Samsung Galaxy S4
3. Movies 2013
4. Onehitcf
5. Camera 360
6. PAL Express
7. Neri Naig
8. Miss Universe 2013
9. EB Babe Yosh
10. iPhone 5s

The People category is exceptionally interesting because it falls in two other categories – sex scandals and beauty queens.

With the exception of Pope Francis, the Filipinos searched online for celebrities that are involved in sex scandals, these include “Wally Bayola” and “EB Babe Yosh”. After the scandal, Bayola, who is one of the more popular comedians in the country is nowhere to be seen in the national TV, where he is one of the hosts in a popular show, until today.

The Philippines also searched for beauty queens.

While the country will be most remembered in 2013 for the Haiyan/Yolanda typhoon, Philippine also made its mark this year among pageant enthusiasts. This year, the Philippines has a winner in every major beauty pageant, including Miss World and Miss Universe. Incidentally, Arielle Arida and Megan Young, the country’s representative to both pageants are also part of the top ten most search persons in the Philippines.

Sex scandals and and the beauty queen trend can be seen in other search categories as well. These include the local celebrity category, where 4 of the top five searches are persons involved in the scandals.

Local Celebrities

1. Neri Naig
2. EB Babe Yosh
3. Wally Bayola
4. Ariella Arida
5. Chito Miranda
6. Megan Young
7. Freddie Aguilar girlfriend
8. Totoy Brown
9. Krista Miller
10. Alyssa Quijano

I can’t comprehend though, why the people involve in the most important scandal that rocked the nation can only be found in the newsmaker category. I’m talking about Janet Napoles and the pork barrel scam.

It seems that the Philippines is still a KPop country.

Google even listed the most searched KPop groups and Korean celebrities. These include EXO, Girls Generation. and Choi Minho, a member of the pop group Shinee, and lead star of the Korean show “To the Beautiful You”, which aired in the Philippines this year.

KPop Group Category

1. EXO
2. SHINee
3. Girls Generation
4. Tasty
5. Infinite
6. CNBLUE
7. B.A.P
8. B1A4
9. 2PM
10. Super Junior

Korean Personality Category

1. Choi Minho
2. Yoo In Na
3. Lee Hyun Woo
4. Ji Hyun Woo
5. Chanyeol
6. Jang Keun Suk
7. Yoo Seung Ho
8. Kim Jong Un
9. Song Joong Ki
10. Shin Won Ho

Most of the KPop groups in the list have visited the Philippines this year. SHINee was here last September while Girls Generation and CNBlue were in the country last January and June respectively.

What’s in store in 2014 for Philippine Google searches? I know it will definitely be more celebrities, tech, and KPop. It will be exciting to see how these trends will differ in the next year.

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