South Africans spent more time searching for FaceApp than Mandela this week

South Africans spent more of their time this week searching for viral photos app FaceApp than former president Nelson Mandela’s birthday, this according to the globe’s search giant Google.

FaceApp, a mobile app that employs AI to transform users’ faces, became all the rage again this week. The two-year old app now digitally ages the user, and that’s apparently an alluring feature.

South Africans searched for the app (100 000 queries) nearly twice as many times as Mandela Day (50 000 queries), former South African president Nelson Mandela’s birthday.

Okay, so this does make South Africans seem soulless, but Johnny Clegg saw more than five times the search queries (500 000 queries) than FaceApp. The legendary musician passed away on Tuesday after a three-year battle with pancreatic cancer.

Marc Batchelor, former Pirates and Chiefs player gunned down in Johannesburg earlier this week, saw 200 000 search queries.

Feature image: Andy Walker/Memeburn