OTHER NEWS: In a normal week, it would have been our top story. This week, it is a footnote. Singer Whitney Houston is #10 this week thanks to a rumor that she died of a drug overdose last weekend (she didn't). Houston was in an emaciated condition at September 7's tribute concert for Michael Jackson (#37), and was unexpectedly absent from Monday's concert.
NORMAL LIFE CONTINUES: It may surprise some that a number of popular subjects continued to get searches this week. Despite the crisis facing America, many Lycos users still found time to search for the banal, though many of these subjects saw searches fall.
Tattoos (#19) were down 18 percent. Britney Spears (#17) was down 26 percent. NFL (#15) was down 43 percent. Dragonball actually went up four percent.
THE OTHER 25: It seems fairly irrelevant to go through a list of the subjects which are at their lowest ranking in X number of weeks. Interestingly, however, no subject that has been on the Lycos 50 for more than 100 weeks fell off despite the turbulence. The most long-standing departure belongs to The Simpsons (88 weeks). The IRS, Gnutella, baseball, and marijuana each spent over 30 straight weeks on the list.
NOTES ON EDIT: With every subject searched in an almost infinite number of ways, compiling this week's list was a daunting task.
For the record, searches that referred to a specific Tuesday attack were counted among searches for those buildings. Searches that gave the date of the attack are listed together as September 11 (#26), although searches for Black September were not counted. There were a number of searches for just New York (#4), such as New York news or New York attacks. Searches that didn't specify a particular building or city, such as terrorists or terror attacks or the ever-popular America under attack were combined to represent searches for terrorism.
SHORT SUBJECTS: Two-thirds of searches for the Middle East (#39) were for maps? With the NFL season started and drafting over, fantasy football drops by 85 percent? Flightview (#46) is a website that tracks commercial airline flights in the United States? Mid-week it looked like gas prices would make the Lycos 50, after reports of crisis-related price gouging in the Midwest, but the gouging and the searches both fizzled... Cantor Fitzgerald (#45) is a law firm based in the World Trade Center that saw more than 650 employees parish. The nation has been gripped by the emotional story of CEO Howard Lutnick, who lived because he was taking his son to the first day of kindergarten.
NEW THIS WEEK: Nostradamus, World Trade Center, Osama Bin Laden, New York, terrorism, American flag, Afghanistan, Whitney Houston, Red Cross, Taliban, The FBI, Islam, September 11, World War III, The FAA, Camp David, Gordon Sinclair, Pearl Harbor, White House, Michael Jackson, Middle East, Palestineans, Cantor Fitzgerald, Flightview, Pakistan.
DROPOUTS (in order of length of time spent on the list): The Simpsons, IRS, marijuana, baseball, Gnutella, Madonna, diets, 'N Sync, NASCAR, Diablo II, Neopets, Digimon, Playstation 2, Backstreet Boys, fantasy football, Viagra, Eminem, soccer, Slipknot, Howard Stern and deceased sidekick Hank the Angry Drunken Dwarf, NASA, college football, shark attacks, California lottery.
BIGGEST RISE: Of the 25 subjects which stay on the list this week, only one moves up the chart: Michael Jackson, up three places to #37.
BIGGEST DROP: The late R&B star Aaliyah, down 38 places to #43.
FINALLY: If not for the terror attacks making news, Christmas would have entered the Lycos 50 this week.
