Google has unveiled its annual “Year in Search” lists, showing South Africa’s top-trending searches included some bizarre queries such as “Why were corn flakes invented?”
Pop culture, sports and politics captured the nation’s attention, with nine of the 10 top trending search terms being for local people, news and events.
The top trending questions asked in 2019 were:
- Why were corn flakes invented?
- What time is the Rugby World Cup final?
- How many votes for a seat in parliament?
- How did Cameron Boyce die?
- How long is a rugby match?
- What is Bosasa?
- What time do voting stations open?
- Who won the election in South Africa?
- What is media?
- What is teenage pregnancy?
The corn flakes question made it into the top 10 trending questions of the decade, too:
- How to make slime.
- Why were corn flakes invented?
- How to get rid of belly fat.
- How to lose weight in three days.
- Where am I?
- How many weeks in a year?
- How to create an e-mail.
- How to grow hair fast.
- What is depression?
- How to draw eyebrows.
The top 10 trending searches of 2019 were:
- Load shedding
- Election results
- Thanos
- IEC
- Fiona Viotti
- Black Friday specials
- Gavin Watson
- Mark Batchelor
- Teacher’s Day
- Hoërskoel Driehoek
The top 10 trending searches of the decade were:
- Load shedding
- Uzalo
- Meghan Markle
- Zodwa Wabantu
- Baby Shark
- Cardi B
- Game of Thrones
- Thanos
- Nicki Minaj
- Amapiano
Google explained that search trends information is gleaned from data collated by the company based on what South Africans have been searching for and asking Google this year. Google processes more than 40 000 search queries every second. This translates to more than a billion searches per day and 1.2 trillion searches per year worldwide. — © 2019 NewsCentral Media