Google Canada has just confirmed what we all knew deep down inside: Rob Ford was the biggest Canadian news event of 2013. The search giant says Toronto's troubled mayor was the number one "trending" search term of the year, beating out five awful tragedies to claim the top spot.
Ford placed ahead of late "Glee" actor Cory Monteith, "Fast and the Furious" actor Paul Walker, who died in a car crash last month, Hamilton murder victim Tim Bosma, and the Boston marathon bombing between January and December this year, with big spikes in early spring with Gawker and the Toronto Star broke the crack video story and again in November with the first ITO release.
The crack scandal even propelled Ford into a list of male politicians searched by users in the United States, where he placed sixth.
The trending list Ford leads ranks searches that stand out over perennial favourites, like "Facebook," "YouTube," "Justin Bieber," etc. Nelson Mandela, the royal baby, North Korea, the Harlem Shake, and the Lac-Megantic train disaster rounded out the trending top 10.
Chris Bateman is a staff writer at blogTO. Follow him on Twitter at @chrisbateman.
Image: Chris Bateman/blogTO