A Swiftie love story and other captivating obsessions

Photo illustration, from left: Taylor Swift, Jimmy Kimmel, an NFL player in the Miami Dolphins uniform — Photo illustration: Yahoo News; Photos: Emma McIntyre/TAS24/Getty Images, Randy Holmes/ABC via Getty Images, Todd Rosenberg/Getty Images

You can tell a lot about a year by looking at what readers searched for, and 2024 was no exception. The predictable people and events dominated the news—Taylor Swift and Caitlin Clark, Donald Trump and Kamala Harris, the Olympics and the solar eclipse—and like every year in search, Yahoo visitors remind us of them liiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu Football. (Seriously…there were more searches related to the NFL than the NBA, MLB, NHL, and WNBA combined.)

But 2024 was also a year of superheroes, pets, cocktails and TV binges. So grab your favorite drink, snuggle with your pup, and check out this year’s biggest search trends.

But it’s the surprise searches that tell the definitive story of a year – Trad Wives, anyone? – That’s why we analyzed Yahoo search data from January 1 to November 30, 2024 to uncover the most unique trends. Here’s our Class of 2024…and yes, we’re covering what each state is watching and the contentious cat vs. dog controversy.

Taylor Swift: A Love Story

Most of you know all too well that no one has sold out an arena like Swift, who was followed by 11 million fans on his epic Eras Tour, which ended December 8th in Vancouver, Canada.

Trusted news and daily delights straight to your inbox

See for yourself – The Yodel is your destination for daily news, entertainment and feel-good stories.

Final gross ticket sales were, um, most people’s wildest dreams. The 21-month tour sold a record $2 billion in tickets, which, according to The New York Times, is twice as much as any other concert tour in history. Is this why so many of you took a look at Swift’s net worth in 2024? It was the third most popular search for the 14-time Grammy winner, drawing more interest than the entire British royal family.

On average, 3% of articles read on Yahoo News each month were related to Swift. This year there were more searches for her than for the next 36 artists combined.

Enter Kansas City Chiefs star and friend Travis Kelce.

While Swift was popular across the country, Kansas had the highest search rate, followed by Missouri. Interest in Swift peaked in February, with more than 100 million views across 5,000 articles, when Kansas City won Super Bowl LVIII and Kelce won his third championship ring — with Swift in attendance, of course.

But even Kelce couldn’t surpass Clark as the biggest name in sports this year.

I have Caitlin Clark fever

When the college star took her game to the WNBA in 2024, the Indiana Fever quadrupled ticket sales and became the first team to draw more than 300,000 fans in a season. Attendance at both home and away games rose from the lowest in the league to No. 1. The 2024 Rookie of the Year winner was so popular that even a misspelling of her name landed in the top 50 searches.

With a few assists from fellow rookies, the point guard helped break WNBA viewership records on six networks this year, Yahoo Sports reported. Half of those games came against longtime rival Angel Reese, who along with Cameron Brink were among the most searched athletes of the year and helped drive WNBA-related searches by 397% since last season.

The WNBA bias becomes even more apparent when you consider the salaries earned by top players in each league. The top five WNBA players accounted for nearly twice as many searches as the top five NBA players, even though these NBA players earned more than 300 times the annual salary of their female counterparts ($150,227,100 versus $578,040). Dollar).

Cocktails remain classic

Was there a Carpenter effect on this year’s top cocktails? Please, please, please.

The catchy “Espresso” hit No. 1 on the charts in June, and espresso martinis were the top cocktail search in 80% of the country. While cocktail preferences traditionally vary seasonally—old fashioned cocktails in fall and winter, mint juleps in spring, and margaritas in summer—espresso martinis maintained a spot in the top four year-round.

Nevertheless, we have found that regional preferences come to the fore. Nowhere, it seems, were users’ drink choices more pronounced than in South Carolina and Hawaii, where you might want to order a Mint Julep and Mai Tai, respectively, on your next visit.

No land grab for “Yellowstone”

Viewers didn’t need another reason to talk about “Yellowstone,” and yet when Kevin Costner left the hit series to pursue his passion project “Horizon,” it left us waiting two years and the last half of season five was something we weren’t expecting . The long-awaited and equally controversial departure of John Dutton at the premiere only piqued the interest of Yahoo users even more. While the search for the show was popular across the country throughout the year, Oklahoma had a unique interest in Costner. A typical Yahoo user in Oklahoma searched for the actor four times as often as one in Connecticut this year.

While everyone has their favorite shows, we see the popularity of genres change with the seasons. Science fiction was the most popular search engine in the spring and summer before viewers switched to crime fiction in the fall and winter. Searches for reality TV dating shows also saw an increase in the fall.

Superheroes, defeated

When it comes to Yahoo visitors, “Virginia is for lovers” rings true. It topped the list of states looking for romantic comedies this year. But the most wanted movie wasn’t exactly heartwarming – quite the opposite. “Oppenheimer,” a thrilling biopic about the inventor of the atomic bomb, won seven Academy Awards in March and topped searches across much of the United States. Per capita, Yahoo users searched for “Oppenheimer” four times as often as they searched for “Barbie.” was not the top search in any state.

This is for cat lovers

Let’s close out 2024 with a timeless question: cats or dogs? Based on this year’s searches, most of you are talking about cats – especially in Louisiana, where there were five times more searches for cats than the average state.

Our Yahoo Trends in 2024 report is based on analysis of internal data from January to November 2024. The project was led by Robin Kwong and Coleen O’Lear. Mark Bowers, Kent Johnson, Mike Bebernes, Jenn Rourke and Ed Hornick contributed.

Breaking News

Dellupodisabato