As the year draws to a close, it’s time to look back. Luckily, thanks to Google, we can do that in just a few clicks.
This week, the global search giant unveiled its top trends of 2023 across the globe!
For its 25th consecutive year, Google gave us its top trending lists, “based on search terms that had the highest spike this year as compared to the previous year.”
The biggest change from years past to now? A lot. Sort of.
This year, Shakira was the most searched musician in the world.
Just last year, in 2022, Adam Levine topped the list, with Shakira not even in the top 10. And Actress Jenna Ortega and Actor Pedro Pascal made it to the top 5 lists of most searched actors in the world, with, like Shakira, no mention at all on lists in the previous year.
In 2020, when Google started its Year in Search lists, Shakira was on our minds globally, holding the No. 2 spot on the most searched “entertainment” in the world, joined by Justin Bieber at No. 1, with Eminem, Netflix, and YouTube rounding out the list. That’s when she sang the official song of the World Cup in South Africa, “Waka Waka (This Time For Africa).”
At the beginning of 2023, Shakira’s split from longtime boyfriend Gerard Piqué made the most headlines. By the end of the year, her many newly released songs, most notably, her collaboration with Argentine DJ and record producer BZRP in March, topped people’s minds, and searches.
Interestingly, we noticed Google’s “Year in Search” lists came in two languages for the United States, English and Spanish. But only in one language for dozens of other countries.
“Given the number of Spanish speakers in the US, we knew there were millions of searches being done in Spanish since Google’s early days … ,” Google’s Jesús García tells us. “We’ve been segmenting Spanish language search trends in the US for our annual Year in Search recap since 2014. However, we didn’t start publishing those lists until 2017.”
What and who else were we searching for in 2023? Here are other interesting trending lists from around the world, and in the U.S.
Most Searched Songs in the World:
2 Try That In A Small Town – Jason Aldean
3 Bzrp Music Sessions, Vol. 53 – Shakira and Bizarrap
4 Unholy – Sam Smith and Kim Petras
Most Searched Actors in the World:
3 市川 猿之助 (Ichikawa Ennosuke IV)
Most Searched Musicians in the United States:
Most searched “canciones” in the United States:
1 Bzrp Music Sessions, Vol. 53 – Shakira and Bizarrap
2 LA PEOPLE – Peso Pluma and Tito Double P
3 AMG – Gabito Ballesteros, Natanael Cano, and Peso Pluma
