The 2023 most search results from Google have recently been released, with the Optus outage and Israel-Hamas war topping the interest of Australians.
Other popular news related searches included controversial social media star Andrew Tate and results for The Voice referendum.
Australian women’s soccer players Sam Kerr and Mary Fowler topped the “People chart” in terms of who users searched most by name. This came after the 2023 women’s world cup where the national women’s team, the Matildas, broke inaugural records.
The top movies searched for in 2023 in Australia followed the trend of box office popularity.
“Oppenheimer” and “Barbie” took the top two spots, as well as fellow critically acclaimed films such as “Everything Everywhere All at Once,” “John Wick 4,” and “Avatar: Way of the Water.”
In terms of the “Loss” Category, where users searched for those who had died, Friends actor Matthew Perry who played Chandler was the most searched.
Fellow stars that were lost included Jock Zonfrillo who was an acclaimed Australian MasterChef judge and Tina Turner an American singer-songwriter who was known as the “queen of rock and roll.”
In terms of global searches, the results aligned with major global events.
Top news searches included the conflict between Israel and Gaza, similar to Australia.
However, global search statistics were slightly different to Australia’s, with Titanic Submarine the second most searched topic after the tragic accident. Other top searches were the Turkey and Syria earthquakes, which claimed over 55,000 lives, and Hurricane Hilary and Idalia, two category 4 hurricanes that impacted the United States this year.
American football player Damar Hamlin topped the “People” chart in terms of searches as a result of his cardiac arrest during an NFL game in January.
Further searches included actor Jeremy Renner, best known for playing Hawkeye in Marvel films, who was run over by a snowplow machine.
