Australians were bewitched by a breakdancer, puzzled by American politics and dazzled by the meaning of the word "demure" in 2024, internet search trends reveal.
The US election captured the greatest amount of Australian attention online in 2024, but pop star Taylor Swift still bested politicians from all sides and all countries to be crowned as the top global figure of the year.
Tech giant Google released its snapshot of the Australian zeitgeist on Tuesday, detailing the most popular terms and questions asked of its search engine during 2024.
While politics and sport dominated questions, Google Australia search trends communications manager Camilla Ibrahim said they revealed deep interest in news events, home cooking and artsy movies.
“Australia’s Year in Search offers a fascinating snapshot of our nation’s interests and evolving culture,” she said.
“It shows Aussies are globally aware, passionate about sport, curious, creative and up for a challenge.”
Politics and sport dominated online queries for Australians, Google found, with the US election the top search topic of the year, followed by the Paris Olympics medal tally and results from the UEFA European Football Championship.
Perhaps helped by her Eras tour, Taylor Swift claimed the fifth-most popular search query in Australia and was also named the top global figure in Google Australia searches, besting US President-Elect Donald Trump in second place and US Vice-President Kamala Harris in fourth.
Among Australian public figures, Raygun, also known as academic and breakdancer Rachael Gunn, earned third spot on the list following her headline-grabbing performance and kangaroo-like moves at the Paris Olympic Games.
Freed journalist Julian Assange scored second place, with business entrepreneur John Singleton named as the most-searched Australian figure after suffering a personal tragedy during the Bondi Junction stabbing attack.
The crime, which claimed seven lives, ranked among the most searched news events of the year, in addition to the disappearance of Victorian woman Samantha Murphy, the Crowdstrike outage that disrupted computers and stores, and Cyclone Kirrily that hit Queensland early in the year.
Other search trends revealed Australians’ curiosity about words such as demure, made popular in a TikTok video, interest in do-it-yourself car maintenance and Halloween costumes and how to make Crumbl cookies and “oatzempic”.
Edgy entertainment choices such as the movie Saltburn and the TV series Baby Reindeer ranked highly in Google’s search trends, although Brisbane production Boy Swallows Universe, based on Trent Dalton’s bestselling novel, ranked in fourth spot.
Google dominates web searches in Australia, according to Statcounter, with 93 per cent of the market, followed by Microsoft’s Bing with 4.92 per cent.
