Last week's presidential transfer of power caused multiple waves online, not all of them political.
Searches for his inauguration address and early policy announcements boost President George W. Bush to #13. More surprising was the attention paid to both his daughter and his predecessor.
Jenna Bush (#31) is generally regarded as the more attractive of the Bush twins, and she's been receiving a good number of searches since her father won the presidency. Her searches jumped significantly last week as Lycos users looked for rumored of online footage of Jenna dancing with her father at an inaugural ball.
Why was this footage so avidly sought? Alas, our president is a somewhat unwieldy dancer, and while twirling his daughter, her dress fell off her shoulder, exposing a breast for the cameras. We're not sure which was more popular online: footage of a female celebrity body part, or footage of the president looking goofy.
More serious searchers were scouring the Internet not for flesh but for facts about the long list of presidential pardons (#35) given by President Clinton as his last act in office. Some searchers even got confused, asking for Bush presidential pardons by mistake.
By far the most controversial pardon went to fugitive financier Marc Rich. His pardon caused such debate that Rich received more searches than Elizabeth Taylor last week, despite her awkward behavior at the Golden Globes (#16).
FOOTBALL FRENZY: Football fans were out in force the week before the Super Bowl, driving the big game up to #5. To further prove that Super Bowl Sunday is our newest national holiday, searches for the game and the teams were joined by searches for Super Bowl recipes, Super Bowl food, and even Super Bowl party games. Funny, we thought the Super Bowl was the party game.
Football widows will need another two months to mourn, as the XFL (#30) continues its march up the Lycos 50. The upstart league, which begins its season Saturday night, is such a success already that last week it received more searches than more established leagues the NBA and NHL combined. Viva Vaughn Dunbar!
SURPRISING SEX SYMBOL: The other sports story of the week was the Australian Open (#29), which lifted tennis stars even higher than usual. Anna Kournikova (#18) searches were up 24 percent, and Martina Hingis searches were up 185 percent.
The most astounding performance was by Jennifer Capriati, the onetime prodigy who arrived this week as both a tennis player and a sex symbol. Capriati, who unexpectedly beat Hingis in the tournament final, saw searches grow by an astounding 4400 percent. In fact, seven times as many Lycos users searched just for Jennifer Capriati pictures this week than searched for her in total last week.
TAXMAN, MR. THIEF: Not just the IRS (#4) but taxes (#15) are becoming a big search topic with April 15 growing ever closer. Once again, we counted only terms related to tax filing time, such as tax preparation and tax returns, ignoring queries for tax policy, tax cuts and commercial products like TurboTax and Quicken.
SHORT SUBJECTS: The Jenna Bush footage wasn't the only piece of underground multimedia to hit the Internet this week: a number of Britney Spears (#2) searches asked for audio of an alleged swearing fit she had at the Rock in Rio festival two weeks ago? Speaking of Britney, the top three items have been in the same order for four weeks? Temptation Island (#24) continues to lose steam, as does Playstation 2 (#25) and the post-new year diet (#49) craze.
NEW THIS WEEK: Taxes, Golden Globes, Jenna Bush, presidential pardons, Oprah Winfrey.
DROPOUTS: Famous daddy Jesse Jackson, and four musical acts: Metallica, Madonna, Christina Aguilera, and U2.
BIGGEST RISE: Chinese New Year, up 32 places to #12.
BIGGEST DROP: Martin Luther King Jr. , down 32 places to #36.
FINALLY: This Lycos 50 reflects the search week which ended on Saturday, which explains why a number of subjects which hit this weekend (Survivor, Super Bowl Commercials, and the Indian Earthquake) -- are not on the list. Expect to see those items next Tuesday - as well as searches for Britney's provocative Super Bowl halftime show outfit.
