Google released today its annual list of the most popular subjects its users searched over the past year, and Apple’s flagship iPhone 5s appeared third on the list, after Nelson Mandela – the South African civil rights revolutionary who passed away earlier this month – and Paul Walker.
FSM EXCLUSIVE DEAL It’s perhaps unsurprising that the #1 trending search of 2013 was an international symbol of strength and peace: Nelson Mandela. Global search interest in the former President of South Africa was already high this year, and after his passing, people from around the world turned to Google to learn more about Madiba and his legacy.
People uploaded more than 1.7 million video versions of the Harlem Shake to YouTube, propelling it to the #5 spot on Google’s global list; it was also the second most trending video on YouTube. And unashamedly, we all wanted to learn about twerking, which topped this year’s “what is…” list of search terms (although I’m still not sure I understand that one!).
Here’s a full look at our top 10 global trending searches of 2013:
- Nelson Mandela
- Paul Walker
- iPhone 5s
- Cory Monteith
- Harlem Shake
- Boston Marathon
- Royal Baby
- Samsung Galaxy s4
- PlayStation 4
- North Korea
You can also explore more global trends this year—directly from Google’s Zeitgeist homepage. Check out the top 100 trending searches of 2013, and simply click one to dig deeper on Google Trends. Or if you’d rather be nostalgic, you can take a look back at each year’s Zeitgeist from 2001 on.