Skip To Content

    Egypt vs. Charlie Sheen: Which Do You Care About More?

    There's a world-changing, history-making battle brewing. In one corner stands the population of Egypt, fighting for equal rights against an oppressive dictator; in the other is actor Charlie Sheen with five porn stars and a suitcase full of cocaine. Who. Will. Win?!

    • Charlie Sheen & Friends vs. Hosni Mubarak

      News that Charlie Sheen had been hospitalized for "laughing too hard at the TV" 2 days after the protests in Egypt began. Searches for "Mubarak" rose to levels greater than adult film star Kacey Jordan, and slightly less than Bree Olson.

    • Charlie Sheen vs. Egypt

      While Charlie Sheen's name is more Googled than Hosni Mubarak, the story that holds more of public interest becomes apparent not by comparing the people, but comparing Charlie Sheen to all of Egypt. By January 28th, Charlie Sheen's story had captured enough attention to put the volume of searches for his name above the average pre-protest levels for Egypt.

    • On the 27th, the Egyptian government cut off internet access from the citizens, adding a larger issue of censorship to the story. At this moment, American internet users became more concerned for Egypt than intrigued in Charlie Sheen's plans to build a porn family in a mansion just down the road.

    • Posts And Views On The BuzzFeed Network

      Within the BuzzFeed network (partners and users together) Charlie Sheen took the lead in the number of total stories published, the total number of page views, and the highest viral ratio.

    • Google News

    • In terms of news results detected by Google, Egypt trounced Charlie Sheen by a ratio of six to one.

    • BuzzFeed Trending Topics (Beta)

      In trying to gauge which stories are the most viral at any given moment, we're experimenting with a new topic-clustering technology in our Beta Trending Topics page. Focusing simply on the top-performing individual posts isn't nearly as effective as grouping together all posts within a specific term. This is especially useful when weighing one story's popularity against another.

    • January 29th

      Even four days after search volume for Egypt had over-taken that of Charlie Sheen, Egypt articles still lagged behind in viral spread.

    • January 30th

      But the next day, Egypt finally overtook Charlie Sheen after it was reported that Al Jazeera in Cairo was facing a shut down.

    • Most Tweeted About

      On Twitter, Charlie Sheen and Egypt were about even when the first reports of Sheen's hospitalization broke at 3:00 PM on January 27th. But tweets about Egypt erupted mere hours later, eclipsing Charlie Sheen.

    • What Do You Think?

      Can Charlie Sheen survive the amount of sex and drugs it takes to become a bigger story than a national revolution?