I’m a bit of a statistics nerd when it comes to sport, so after noticing a lot of people arriving on the KCKRS doorstep after searching for “Hope Solo hot” I decided to take a peek at some of the search trend analytics Google provides to see just where and how this Hope Solo love-fest has developed online.
Here’s Google search volume trending for a simple “hope solo”. We see clear spikes around the 2007 World Cup, in fact significantly greater than that of the current 2011 World Cup. So maybe all of us commenting on Hope Solo mania this summer are falling prey to the illusions that recency can create because apparently people were all up in her biz much more 4 years ago after she slagged off her coach for dropping her.
However, when the search term changes to “hope solo hot” so does the trend. Greatly. In fact search volume for “hope solo hot” doesn’t even register in previous years in Google’s data until the enormous spike in 2011 during the tournament.
Blonde HoSo didn’t do it for people in 2007, apparently.
Given searches for HoSo herself were greater in 2007 than 2011 – why was no one searching for her hotness back then, seemingly at all? Is it the change in hair colour? Maybe Hope as a brunette is somehow infinitely hotter than Hope the blonde? Or are we as a society just much, much more horny and 4 years has allowed us to hone our muscle-memory to turn any remotely good-looking, remotely-famous woman we see or hear about into a pervvy internet search?
The last trend to add is searches for “hope solo boyfriend”, a term which has experienced a growth in popularity even greater than “hope solo hot”
Not only are many, MANY more people searching for Hope Solo and her hotness during the 2011 WWC than the 2007 WWC, but many people are also interested in who she’s dating. Are they guys who are hoping to discover that she’s single, therefore removing the only possible barrier they can imagine to their marrying her? Or is it girls who are interested in seeing what kind of man HoSo can pull, to either be jealous of or hate on in a fit of still-jealous rage?
We’ll never know what’s really driving all these millions of searches, but they are important questions. Maybe the most important of all time.
