The List of the 100 Most Web-Searched People and What it Says About Celebrity Today

The web traffic analysis company Glimpse recently published its list of the 100 people most searched for in 2024 (based on its sampling of Google's traffic).

As might be guessed in this exceptionally fraught election year the presidential election was significant in the rankings. (Thus did Donald Trump make the #1 position, Kamala Harris #10, while such figures as Elon Musk and Joe Rogan also owe their places in the upper ranks of the list to the election, these placing at #3 and #20, respectively.)

But what about the figures from the world of entertainment who more conventionally dominate the list? These were present, too, of course, accounting for seven of the top ten spots--with six of them coming from the music world, starting with Taylor Swift at #2, and continuing with Ariana Grande at #4, Drake at #5, Billie Eilish at #6, and so on. Athletes do pop up here and there, with Cristiano Ronaldo at #9, LeBron James at #14, Travis Scott at #15, but they are a weaker presence (while in the case of Scott one would wonder whether he would rank so highly without his association with Swift), all as even those who have made a significant name for themselves as actors tend to have a strong presence in music as well, as with Selena Gomez at #18. Only with Tom Holland at #38 does an actor who is not also well-known as a singer or rapper first appear (and one might wonder if he is not, like Scott, helped in this by his higher-ranked and more musical girlfriend, his Spider-Man franchise co-star Zendaya, who in 2024 was up at #28).

All that seems to affirm the view that amid this period in which, amid cultural fragmentation and much else, traditional celebrity is in decline, the pop stars are doing better in holding on to their cultural cachet than their counterparts in sports, acting and certainly fashion.