Barbie, that saucy minx, has been surging up our search logs the last few weeks. She's up to #38 on the latest Lycos 50 -- a run-up to Christmas, perhaps?
Holidays aside, Barbie seems to be a permanent fixation with Web surfers. She's been on or near the Lycos 50 every week since we began last August. What, exactly, are all those people looking for?
We went through our user search logs for the first half of 2000, looking for queries including the word "Barbie." Those which registered at least 0.1% (one-tenth of one percent) of all Barbie searches are listed below.
As is evident, the vast majority of people look for "Barbie" plain and simple. The surprise: far fewer shopping or collecting queries than we would have imagined. The complete list:
56.2% Barbie(s)
19.4% Barbie.com
11.3% Barbie dolls
4.8% Barbie twins
2.5% Barbie Benton
1.2% Barbie pictures
0.9% Barbie furniture
0.6% Vintage Barbie
0.6% African American Barbie
0.5% Barbie Web pages
0.3% Marilyn Monroe Barbie
0.2% Barbie doll clothes
0.1% Millennium Barbie
0.1% History of Barbie
0.1% Rapunzel Barbie
0.1% Barbie coloring pages
0.1% Barbie sales
0.1% Original Barbie
0.1% Barbie house
0.1% Barbie collectors
0.1% Barbie plastic surgery
0.1% Harley Davidson Barbie
Yes, there is an officially-approved Harley Davidson Barbie. And no, she's neither topless nor chewing tobacco. Truth is, she looks scarcely less wholesome than Marilyn Monroe Barbie or
Rapunzel Barbie.
Those searches for Barbie Twins are misspelled searches for the real-life Barbi Twins who are, shall we say, professional acquaintances of Hugh Hefner. If nothing else, they have Barbie's blank expression down pat.
Also misspelled were searches for immortal actress Barbi Benton -- and can that '70s icon *really* still be getting searches after all these years? God bless the old gal, but there must be more AARP members online than we thought. She's also popular, it seems, because of a possibly-true quote she allegedly made about fur coats.
As for "Barbie plastic surgery," that's apparently a reference to Cindy Jackson, the woman who's spent $100,000 having herself surgically altered to look more like everyone's favorite doll. (Or at least more like Ivana Trump.)
Well: life imitates dolls, after all.
