Local interest trumped global developments, judging from Google searches in Greece at least, with only one out of ten searches during the year relating to a non-Greek personality.
According to the global multinational, the surprise top search by users in Greece was rapper Sin Boy, who overtook political newcomer Stefanos Kasselakis, the unexpected winner of an internal race to succeed Alexis Tsipras as leader of the leftist party SYRIZA.
Social media speculation and fake news about the rapper’s supposed death fueled the searches.
On a much bleaker note, the third most popular search by users in Greece involved a local actor, Odysseas Stamoulis, whose 11-year-old son drowned tragically over the summer with his ex-wife, the boy’s mother, dying just a few months later.
The only foreign personality to make the Top Ten list of searches on google.gr was Andrew Tate, who came in at number eight. Although arrested and charged with sex trafficking in December 2022, subsequent developments in the case attracted the attention and curiosity of Greek netizens.
The first woman in the Top Ten—at number nine—is the previously unknown Dimitra Vamvakousi, whose upcoming marriage to a local celebrity from the Greek-language Survivor franchise, and her subsequent pregnancy, attracted significant popular attention.
The most prolific search by Greek users following a sudden death was for Matthew Perry.
