Hurtful public opinion about an actress’s body, the rape of a seven-year old, and a beloved TV star’s death all dominated Google search trends this week.
Johannesburg, 4 October — Body shaming once again reared its ugly head last Thursday as South Africans searched the web far and wide to find out all they could about former Generations star, Sophie Ndaba. The actress-turned-businesswoman sparked curiosity when she took to Instagram to defend the large amount of weight she has lost in recent times, opening up about her struggle with diabetes and rejecting hurtful rumours about her health. The term “Sophie Ndaba” drew more than 50 000 searches on the day.
On Friday, the case of the man accused of raping a seven-year-old girl got the country talking. The spike in searches coincided with government warning the public not to share a video circulating on social media depicting the alleged rapist being confronted for raping the child at a Dros pub in Pretoria. The South African government tweeted that the video is insensitive to the child and could jeopardise legal proceedings. The search term “Dros” drew more than 20 000 searches that day, topping searches for Ryder Cup, Kevin Hart’s movie (Night School) and Elon Musk.
At the start of the weekend, search trends were dominated by sport with the Premier League, as well as the then-pending rugby meet between South Africa and Australia in Port Elizabeth, featuring prominently. “Westham vs Man United”, “Chelsea vs Liverpool” and “Springboks” all drew 50 000+ searches.
Closing off the weekend, South Africans searched “Shoki Mokgapa” more than 20 000 times as it emerged that the popular actress had committed suicide. Shoki’s struggle with clinical depression and anxiety comes to light at a time when more and more South Africans are beginning to speak openly and seek more information about mental health issues.
On Monday, news broke that FNB Life is the fastest growing life insurance product in South Africa. The Swiss Re survey which uncovered these results also revealed that there are more than three million life insurance policies covered by FNB in the country. As a result, “FNB” raked in more than 50 000 Google searches.
Nicholas Ninow, the alleged Dros rapist, once again took the top search spot on Tuesday as he appeared in court amidst rising calls for attempted murder to be added to his charge sheet. The ANC Women’s League meanwhile called for all rapists to be castrated. The search query, “Nicholas Ninow”, collected more than 50 000 search results.
Nhlanhla Nene’s appearance in front of the State Capture Inquiry piqued the interest of South Africans who wanted to learn more about how the former finance minister was removed from office by then-president Jacob Zuma. “Nhlanhla Nene” and “William Nicol” both drew more than 5 000 search queries each on Wednesday, with the latter rising from the proposed change of the Johannesburg road’s name to Winnie Madikizela Drive. “SA vs Zim” drew more than 20 000 searches after South Africa’s victory in that cricket match.
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. Google trends data is updated hourly and is available on https://www.google.co.za/trends.
Search trends in South Africa tend to be news- and sports-driven. People search for things they hear or see on the news, and sports search terms trend several times a week on average, every week.
Google’s mission is to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful. Through products and platforms like Search, Maps, Gmail, Android, Google Play, Chrome and YouTube, Google plays a meaningful role in the daily lives of billions of people and has become one of the most widely-known companies in the world. Google is a subsidiary of Alphabet Inc.