Bing’s 2013 top searches offer terrifying glimpse into American psyche

Bing released a list of its top searches for 2013, and the results confirm that we are a nation obsessed with Beyonce, babies, and the Kardashians. 

The top searches for people in 2013 were mostly good-looking women in the entertainment industry: Beyonce took the top spot, followed by Kim Kardashian. Rihanna, Taylor Swift, and Madonna followed. Justin Bieber is the first male person on the list. I’m not sure what the implications of that are for men in general, but probably not good. Nicki Minaj, Amanda Bynes, Miley Cyrus, and Barack Obama round out the top 10. According to Bing, Miley was searched for more frequently in 2012 than 2013, which doesn’t seem right, especially since she might become Time’s Person of the Year. 

For news stories, Americans were most concerned with the birth of England’s royal baby, which seems like a bad thing to be overly concerned about — the Boston Marathon bombing, Cleveland kidnapping, and George Zimmerman trial were all frequently searched, but apparently our appetite for news of Kate Middleton’s womb trumped interest in, you know, domestic terrorist attacks and pervasive violence. (Or maybe everyone’s using Google to search for the really serious stuff.) During the government shutdown, “fiscal cliff” became the most searched-for economic term, so at least we want to know when something catastrophic is happening to our national finances. 

Tim Tebow is the most-searched sports star, and the Harlem Shake was the most-sought after meme, with Grumpy Cat in second. The word “sloths” is apparently the sixth most searched-for meme, but it should be number one, because sloths are amazing. 

Bing didn’t tell us the most searched-for term overall, but it did include a list of most searched-for reality stars, which was unsurprisingly dominated by the Kardashian/Jenner tribe, although Snooki made a good showing at number three, and somehow enough people remembered Kate Gosselin to snag her the last spot. 

It will be interesting to see how Bing’s searches stack up against Google. Miley Cyrus is currently the most searched-for person according to Google Trends, so her low ranking on Bing’s list is bizarre. Pizza Hut sits atop both Google and Bing’s food searches, however, so the insatiable desire for mediocre franchised delivery seems to transcend search engines.