Editor’s note: This article was first published in November 2010. The Facebook page “1 million signatures to keep Belén Esteban off television” having passed a million signatures, and her TV ratings records, are as of that month.
I think we all know Belén Esteban (a Spanish TV celebrity); there’s even a page on Facebook called “1 million signatures to keep Belén Esteban off television“. The thing is, it has already passed a million signatures, but she keeps appearing. Belén Esteban has become the biggest source of income for thousands of websites, because if anyone has any doubts about what people search for online, at least in Spain and part of South America, it isn’t new technologies or new business opportunities. The keyword is Belén Esteban.
Rumour has it that, among all the search activity on Google, one search in particular caught the search engine’s attention: searches for the keywords “Belén Esteban” overloaded the search engine to the point that Google contacted Spanish national media to find out who this woman was and what was going on with her.
Obviously, despite the explanations given to Google’s representatives, they still couldn’t understand how the ex-wife of a bullfighter, who has nothing “important” to say, let alone to show, could arouse such interest among Spaniards (these are only rumours).
Belén Esteban breaks audience records every time she has a new lover or boyfriend, or every time she has dinner at a restaurant. Add to that the fact that she’s now breaking records online too, and we’re talking about a woman who is worth “gold” for ratings, and who turns the gossip press and the TV and online media that talk about her into a very lucrative, profitable business.
In fact, new websites have appeared whose only subject is the news this woman generates.
In this particular case, I imagine that if the people in charge at Google were American, on hearing the explanation of who Belén Esteban is and why there’s so much interest in her, they would have said, or simply thought: “These Spaniards are crazy.”
Does anyone not know who Belén Esteban is?
Featured image: Asoundd, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
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