What’s Trending – January 2017

Tennis, viral videos and The Hottest 100 were the flavour of the month for Googlers and Facebookers in January – with a dash of President Donald Trump, of course.

AUSTRALIAN OPEN

January was all about the Australian Open in Melbourne, and Googlers all over the country wanted to keep up to date with the 2two-week tennis championships as it was broadcast across the nation. Most popular were the men’s and women’s singles, as finals winner Roger Federer and opponent Rafael Nadal were some of the most popular related terms on Google for the month, as were women’s singles opponents Serena Williams and Venus Williams. Nick Kyrgios also made the Googler’s cut as he intriguingly lost to Andreas Seppi, ranked 89 in the event. Australians were also interested in a tennis champion’s paycheck, as ‘prize money for Australian Open 2017’ was also a popular related query (it’s a share of 50 million Australian dollars, by the way).

AUSTRALIA DAY

Australia Day was a big topic for Facebook users in January – particularly among younger women, who led the social debate for changing the date – as well as users more interested in spending the public holiday listening to The Hottest 100, another popular topic on both Facebook and Google for January.

AMBER SHERLOCK

Amber Sherlock, an Australian journalist, turned viral when footage that was taken during a commercial break of Nine News Now showed her having an outburst because her and two other journalists were wearing the same colour (white), and were pictured next to each other in the video frame. Australians in the ACT were the most keen to see the video, and fellow gossipers in New South Wales and Tasmania weren’t far behind. The most common related searches included ‘Amber Sherlock video’, ‘Amber Sherlock meltdown’ and ‘Jimmy Kimmel Amber Sherlock’ (the comedian featured the video on his show).

BARACK OBAMA

As Donald Trump took over the presidency in January, Facebook users took the time to bid farewell to Barack (and Michelle) Obama as they said goodbye to the White House. Older men and women were the most interested in the topic, sharing photos of Obama’s presidency and responding to news stories on the topic.

JOHN HURT

John Hurt, an English actor, passed away on 25 January and Google searches for him subsequently spiked in the days following. Australians (most notably in Tasmania, the ACT and South Australia) searched for the names of his movies, which included a long list of famous titles including The Elephant Man, Alien, V for Vendetta and the Harry Potter film series, to name a few.

VALENTINE'S DAY

The lead-up to the month of love weighed heavily on the minds of Facebook users – particularly young women – with the expectation (or not) of chocolate, roses and teddy bears just around the corner on 14 February. Curated photos exploded across Facebook as users gravitated towards self-deprecating Valentine’s Day memes in the lead up to the big day.

THE HOTTEST 100

Triple J’s Hottest 100 was once again a top talking topic for music lovers across Australia. Come Australia Day, the nation’s biggest musical democracy wasn’t just popular on radios, but on Google too. Searches peaked on 26 January as the nation tuned in to listen to the countdown of 2016’s hottest songs, as voted by Triple J listeners. Search volume was fairly equally distributed across the country, and listeners were most concerned with finding out the start time for the countdown as well as a tracklist of the top songs. In case you missed it, Flume’s ‘Never Be Like You’ took out the #1 spot.

MERYL STREEP

Meryl Streep was honoured at the 2017 Golden Globes on 8 January for a lifetime of notable work, and she took the opportunity to diss Donald Trump, resulting in her becoming a very hot topic all over the Facebook News Feed, particularly amongst older women.

DONALD TRUMP

Donald Trump’s inauguration as the 45th President of the United States was held on 20 January and his first week as president was certainly of interest to Googlers across Australia. Searches peaked on the day after his inauguration, with Australians maintaining a steady interest on Google from there on out. Trump’s controversial policies became the most popular related queries – with related search terms like ‘Trump immigration ban’ and ‘Trump executive orders’ some of the most prevalent – as well as comedic videos and celebrity responses, such as ‘Bad Lip Reading Trump’ and ‘Meryl Streep Trump.’

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