Larry Ryan: We still haven’t found what we’re searching for
A Google Image search for Kellie Harrington, a top trend in the Irish Year in Search report.
1. European Football Championship
2. Premier League
3. Coronavirus
4. Seesaw
5. Christian Eriksen
That's who we are now, in Ireland, according to Google’s annual ‘Year in Search’ report. As a people we check our phones 55 times a day, reckoned Deloitte lately, and this, seemingly, is what we are looking for.
In 2021, we were concerned about Christian, calmly overseeing the nippers’ education, obsessed with Covid.
Yet thankfully largely undistracted from the main events. Of those 55 scrolls each day, how many are to check the Premier League table or the weekend’s fixtures? To assess the value of three precious points. To calibrate the weight of an upcoming six-pointer. Or to make another tweak to the Fantasy team.
Maybe all the uncertainty has brought us closer to what we know. Go global for Google’s top 10 trends and the grip sport has is evident. Only a Korean drama and rapper Earl Simmons broke up the cartel. The list helps you appreciate just how many Indian cricket fans there are. But there’s probably even an autumn international in there somewhere if you keep clicking.
1. Australia vs India
2. India vs England
3. IPL
4. NBA
5. Euro 2021
6. Copa América
7. India vs New Zealand
8. T20 World Cup
9. Squid Game
10. DMX
And then there’s this list:
1. Christian Eriksen
2. Gordon Elliott
3. Alec Baldwin
4. Matt Hancock
5. Kellie Harrington
These are the folk Irish people were searching in 2021, according to the same report — big Gord making it a breakthrough year for the gee-gees, with Robbie Dunne timing his run a touch late. God knows who he’ll blame for that.
Eriksen again — shocking us, like the Baldwin tragedy. Hancock, like Elliott, pictured in a compromising position.
And Kellie. You’d be surprised if many even typed her surname, so close is she to earning Pele mononymous status. A dignified poster woman, a symbol for her place, her gender, her sport. The sportsperson we turn to now for whatever it is we are looking.
At least that’s what everyone reported this week.
‘From the Euros to Kellie Harrington and Squid Game — what Ireland Googled in 2021’. ‘Irish Olympic gold hero Kellie Harrington one of most Googled sports stars during 2021’. ‘From Kellie Harrington to Carbonara: What Ireland Googled in 2021’.
She would be a most deserving target of all our attention. But is it really true? What happened to our old obsessions with Ronaldo and Messi and Roy Keane? Good enough to take the call, Julie Dilger, Google Ireland’s head of communications, set a few things straight.
For starters, Julie kindly identified what kind of lunatic actually types ‘European football championship’ into Google. Very few.
“It’s the suggested search term. Probably people typed ‘Euros’ or ‘today at the Euros’ and the suggested text filled it in. Rather than the exact phraseology, the list will take into account the different variations.”
As for the all-conquering ‘EPL’, Google knows enough about us to deliver the goods more or less the moment we tap the screen “Just type PR… the Premier League table is the first thing that gets suggested.”
But Kellie... are we really that captivated?
“Well… actually it’s not a list of the most searched — it’s the biggest increase in search over the past 12 months. So that’s why Kellie Harrington rises up, and Christian Eriksen is so high.
“For instance, Ronaldo probably has had steady search volume over the past few years. It’s really a list of people who have broken through in the last 12 months.”
So everybody sort of reported it wrong during the week?
“Well, we are quite clear what the list means. But people find it easier to say the ‘top searches’, rather than the top trending searches.”
To be fair, a look under the Google hood suggests the actual list of most searched terms in 2021 would be unlikely to generate too many headlines.
1. Facebook
2. Google
3. Youtube
4. Translate
5. Weather
Having Facebook top is inconvenient and it’s hard to know how Google’s user experience gurus would feel about so many people typing Google into Google.
There are a few interesting notes on the sporting front on the true list.
There will be existential angst at adidas HQ in Herzogenaurach this Christmas, with Nike the top search in any way related to sport, down at 24.
There is another boost for the ‘Can’t See, Can’t Be’ ideal in news that worldwide searches for ‘skate park’ hit a five-year high during the Olympics in August.
And just as Nielsen confirmed yesterday one old obsession by revealing England’s Euro semi-final and final were two of the top three most-watching sporting events of the year, at least we are not alone — England was the top searched Euro 2020 team globally.
But Julie was also able to rummage in her own databases for a truer picture of the sportspeople we are searching most and Kellie doesn’t quite make the cut.
Just as it seems a world-leading football guru might be able to find some use after all for a guy who scores every time you get him the ball, it seems we have written off Ronaldo too early in this arena too. The lad will be pleased to have won an old battle, ranking fourth to Messi’s fifth.
And in light of the PGA Tour’s announcement earlier this year that it would be dividing up a $40m (€46.8m) pot based on players’ ‘popularity’ using stuff like their Google search rank, Rory McIlroy will be glad to have pipped Shane Lowry at two and three.
So who’s our number one? Are you guessing Keano? Actually it’s not, perhaps because Roy invariably finds us. We hardly have to search for his every utterance.
No, while we might now regard him as a symbol of an Ireland we thought we’d left behind, we still haven’t found enough of what we’re searching for. He’s still there when we want to be shocked, or appalled, and now even when we need a little Covid expertise.
Who else? The notorious Conor McGregor.
Most searched sportspeople in Ireland 2021: 1. Conor McGregor 2. Rory McIlroy 3. Shane Lowry 4. Cristiano Ronaldo 5. Lionel Messi.
