Dragonball bested fellow Japanese media juggernaut Pokemon to be the most popular fad of 2000, according to searches by Lycos users.
Like last year, we asked five questions to determine what qualifies as a fad:
Was there a catch phrase?
("He's been voted off the island.")
Were jokes or urls e-mailed?
("Check this new Wussup parody?")
Was money spent like crazy?
(Dragonball games, toys, TV shows?)
Did anyone dress up funny?
(Harry Potter costumes, big on Halloween)
Was the spike in interest temporary?
(Checked out the Hamster Dance lately?)
It was difficult to decide which Japanese animated shows counted as fads, and which ones were less universal cultural phenomena. In the end we decided to count the three which were as likely to be known by parents as by kids: Dragonball, Pokemon, and Digimon. Japanese anime is so popular online that we'll be giving these terms their own category on Wednesday when we look at the top TV shows.
The top non-anime fad was Napster, which went from a small music-swapping program to an international phenomenon. Searches went up more than 5400 percent compared to 1999.
THE TOP 20 (last year's rank in parentheses):
1. Dragonball (-)
2. Pokemon (1)
3. Napster (-)
4. Big Brother (-)
5. Digimon (-)
6. Harry Potter (10)
7. Survivor (-)
8. The Sims (-)
9. Beanie Babies (4)
10. Who Wants to Be a Millionaire (14)
11. Scooters (-)
12. The Atkins Diet (-)
13. Playstation 2 (-)
14. Hamster Dance (-)
15. PT Cruiser (-)
16. Whassup Commercials (-)
17. Feng Shui (12)
18. Powerpuff Girls (-)
19. Jennifer Lopez's Grammy Dress (-)
20. Thong Song (-)
TRUE: Whassup was not only the hottest commercial of 2000, it was the most parodied. The most popular specific Whassup was the Superfriends parody, followed by the original Budweiser ads and the Elian Gonzalez parody.
HOLD THE PASTA: The Atkins Diet received more than four times as many searches as the next most-popular fad diet, The Zone Diet.
ROOKIES OF THE YEAR: The twin terrors of Big Brother and Survivor dominated the summer, as people over the age of 25 discovered reality television. Big Brother got more searches than Survivor because of interest in the 24-hour camera feeds from the house, posted on the show's website.
HOT IN 1999, NOT SO HOT IN 2000: The Blair Witch Project sequel bombed and everybody got tired of Mambo #5.
GRADUATED FADS: It looks like Palm Pilots (#6 in 1999) have moved past fad status? Viagra (#7 in 1999) is also here to stay, which will make a lot of old guys very happy.
STRANGELY ABSENT: Robotic Dogs seem to be all bark, no bite? and speaking of dogs, Who Let The Dogs Out received only 20 percent as many searches as Thong Song.
ONES TO WATCH 2001: Fingerboards and Finger bikes, small model skateboards and bikes you can use to do tricks, are hot items with the kids? FOX's Love Cruise and Temptation Island could be the next hot reality shows... Don't forget Survivor II, beginning after the Super Bowl.
ONES TO WATCH 2000: '90s nostalgia never really came around, but we've never nailed anything like we nailed our prediction of success for Dragonball.
Tomorrow we'll return to the world of the weekly Lycos 50, then Wednesday we will take a look at the Web's Top TV Shows of 2000, both prime-time and animated.
Note: These rankings reflect all terms entered into the Lycos search engine by users between January 1 and November 30, 2000. All spellings and search variations are included in these totals: for instance, searches for CBS Survivor and Survivor winner are counted as searches for Survivor. For more details about how we create these lists, please see our Lycos 50 FAQ.
