While 2017 may be Eng Subin our rearview mirror calendar-wise, it's still got its claws in us, as evidenced by Wikipedia's newly released list of the top 50 searches of last year, which offers a few peeks into the darkness of our lives in the 21st Century.
SEE ALSO: Trump is on pace to lie 8,000 times by the end of his first termWhile the list is primarily a mish-mash of searches for entertainment and figures, nothing is as jarring as the top two items on the list, which both remind us that the world is a cold, dark place:
Deaths in 2017 (37,387,010 views, peaking on November 20 following the death of Charles Manson)
Donald Trump (29,644,764 views, peaking on January 20 due to his inauguration).
(There are too many jokes to be made about this pairing but one wonders if Trump's inability to best Death will result in an ongoing one-sided Twitter feud in which Trump blasts Death for its poor business skills and small hand/button/Diet Coke can size.)
Other than those two searches, more light-hearted fare reigned at the top of the list. Queen Elizabeth ranked third with 19,290,956 views and peaked on December 10, the day Netflix dropped the second season of its popular period drama about Liz, The Crown. And Game of Thronesappeared twice in the top 10.
Other notable folks appearing on the list include Meghan Merkle (#5, 16,944,130 views), Gal Gadot (#15, 14,034,958 views), future president The Rock (#22, 12,444,987 views), and unpopular Game of Thronesextra Ed Sheeran (#35, 11,010,941 views).
Again, though, I'd be remiss in not pointing out the more sinister figures that crept their way into Wikipedia searches in the last year including O.J. Simpson (#32, 11,301,016 views), Charles Manson (#34, 11,131,106 views), and even Adolf Hitler (#48, 9,872,486 views).
Interestingly, tech-oriented search terms also placed well on the list, led (unsurprisingly) by the popular cryptocurrency Bitcoin (#9, 15,026,561 views). Embattled tech companies like Facebook (#26, 11,851,106 views) and YouTube (#31, 11,322,747 views) also appeared on the list.
But not on the list? The singularity and robot apocalypse.
Which is fine, really. Go ahead and keep looking up bad films and the generation you blame for everything.
When the robots take over, it won't be my fault you were caught by surprise and didn't know what to do.
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