2024 in Hong Kong saw tens of thousands of Lionel Messi fans disappointed by the footballer’s no-show, a historic medal haul at the Paris Olympics, and homegrown movies that topped box office receipts.
From local headlines to global current affairs, here’s what Hongkongers Googled most this year according to the search engine’s end-of-year trends report.
Messi mess
Messi was the top local news-related keyword searched in Hong Kong this year. In February, the Argentinian star and his American football club Inter Miami came to the city for a friendly match against a local team – but Messi did not play.
The Consumer Council told HKFP that it had received 1,465 complaints as of mid-March, among which 302 were from tourists. Tatler Asia, which organised the match, said it would withdraw a bid for a HK$16 million government grant and offered fans a 50 per cent refund.
Also in the news…
Hong Kong’s waste tax scheme, meant to begin in April but shelved amid controversy, was the third-most searched local news item. Under the scheme, residents would have been required to dispose of garbage using designated bags that they had purchased, with the goal of encourage people to send less to the landfills.
The abrupt closure of Physical, one of the city’s largest gym chains, also dominated searches. Blaming high rents, the chain shut all 23 of its locations in September. Police arrested two of the company’s directors after investigations showed the company had sold prepaid plans to customers a day before announcing its closure. The company is suspected of wrongly accepting payment, an offence under the Trade Descriptions Ordinance.
Also among the top searches were McGriddles, the popular McDonalds breakfast sandwich that was recently introduced to Hong Kong, and CrowdStrike, the US cybersecurity company that saw a widespread outage that downed systems worldwide. The Hong Kong International Airport was impacted, causing airlines to check passengers in manually.
Unlike previous years, politics were conspicuously absent from the top searches, even as 45 prominent pro-democracy figures were jailed for up to 10 years and lawmakers passed a homegrown national security law to “plug loopholes” in the Beijing-imposed security legislation.
‘Playing badminton’ and other slang
“Playing badminton” ranked second on the top trending slang list. The term became a buzzword after the Education Bureau published teaching resources for a new subject called Citizenship, Economics and Society. In a module about intimate relationships, the curriculum suggests that teens can ward off “sexual impulses” by distracting themselves with other activities like playing badminton.
Among other trends were the acronym “SLDPK,” which roughly translates to “laughing my fucking ass off,” and “demure,” part of the “very demure, very mindful” meme that originated from a viral TikTok video. Blackpink’s Rose and Bruno Mars’ song APT, which stands for “apartment” and is also the name of a Korean drinking game, also made the list.
Paris Olympics
Hong Kong bagged two gold medals and two bronze medals at the Olympics in Paris. The medal winners – fencers Vivian Kong and Edgar Cheung, and swimmer Siobhan Haughey – were the top three local public figures and local athletes searched, in that order.
Mainland Chinese Olympic athletes made up five out of the top 10 searches for international figures, among them diver Quan Hongchan and table tennis player Sun Yingsha.
Taiwan’s Lin Yu-ting, who won Taiwan’s first Olympic gold medal in boxing, also dominated the category’s searches. She found herself at the centre of a gender eligibility row, although the International Olympic Committee has said that she was born and raised as a woman.
Box office hits
Two local movies, Twilight of the Warriors: Walled In and The Last Dance were the second and fourth top trending keywords this year. Both films have been box office hits and screened at international film festivals.
Set in the 1980s in Kowloon Walled City, Twilight of the Warriors: Walled In features an illegal migrant in the gang-populated enclave, while The Last Dance discusses themes of life, death and making peace with unresolved trauma through a wedding organiser who pivots into funeral planning.
A year of elections
The US elections in November dominated the top trending keywords and top trending global news searches. Donald Trump and Kamala Harris, the two candidates, were the fourth- and seventh- most searched international figures.
The Taiwan elections in January ranked fourth in global news searches, although only one of the candidates – the Democratic Progressive Party’s William Lai Ching-te – made the top 10 searches for international figures.
International celebrities
Taylor Swift and Coldplay topped the list of top trending global celebrities at first and second, respectively. Earlier this year, when Swift’s six shows in Singapore as part of her international tour drew fans from around the region, lawmakers urged authorities to do more to attract international stars to Hong Kong and revive the economy.
The appeals may have worked. Earlier this year, Coldplay announced it would play four shows in Hong Kong in April. Their concerts will be held at the new Kai Tak Stadium, a sports and entertainment venue which the government has said will bring “significant synergy” to the development of Hong Kong in the area of sports promotion, entertainment and tourism.
ILLIT, an up-and-coming Korean girl group, ranked third, while South Korean actors Kim Ji-won and Kim Soo-hyun also made the list.
Taiwanese TV Host Mickey Huang, who was sentenced to eight months of jail earlier this month over the possession of sexual images of minors, was the fifth-most-searched international celebrity.
