The rise of Megan Fox, the decline of Jessica Alba

Gene Expression
By Razib Khan
Jul 28, 2009 2:40 AMNov 5, 2019 9:40 AM
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In the post below I wanted to have an attractive female headshot, so I naturally looked for something from Megan Fox. A few years ago I probably would have used someone like Jessica Alba. In fact, I did use Alba as an "illustration" a few times in this blog's history. But 3 years is a long time, and Fox is the new thang in the air. But I wanted to make a bit more precise my subjective impression, so I thought Google Trends might be helpful. I think it can be argued that Jessica Alba's "peak" was the mid-2000s, and the trend data goes back to 2004. And so below, the results....

It's rather clear. Fox has eclipsed Alba. At least among the set who use search engines to find more "data" on young starlets. How does Megan Fox relate to other celebrities? Below are comparisons with Paris Hilton and Britney Spears.

The Google Trends data misses the more robust period of Spears' popularity, so Megan Fox is clearly not yet the cultural icon that Britney Spears was. But remember that "Britney Spears" was for a long time the most searched query on the internet. It looks right now though that Spears & Hilton need to come up with something new to stay in the public eye, they don't have Fox's freshness. It should be concerning to both Hilton and Spears that they seem to be in secular decline, but it is simply a fact that they were figures of the turn of the century, and a new decade is dawning....

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