Who is more famous … Justin Bieber or the Kardashians?

I thought long and hard about what article I was going to write for my first one in the all-new pop culture section of the website. I wanted it to be something relevant, and what is more pop culture than the Kardashians or Justin Bieber? Then I started thinking … I wonder just who is more famous?

When Justin Bieber released his new song Love Yourself, everyone said it was about Kendall Jenner. But then I was like, how can that really be? I mean, does she really need to use his name to get in clubs? Isn’t she mega famous?

So that’s when I got to doing my research. Turns out Kendall Jenner isn’t half as famous as Justin Bieber.

If we were to base level of fame solely on how many times a day fans Google their favorite celebs, this is how their level of fame works out …. average monthly searches in ()

• Justin Bieber (11,100,000)
• Kim Kardashian (11,100,000)
• Kylie Jenner (7,480,000)
• Kendall Jenner (5,000,000)

So while big sister Kim is able to go head to head with Justin Bieber in terms of popularity, Kendall – not so much.

Then I wondered just how Kanye West and the other Kardshian’s worked into this formula.

1. Justin Bieber (11,100,000)
2. Kim Kardashian (11,100,000)
3. Kylie Jenner (7,480,000)
4. Kendall Jenner (5,000,000)
5. Caitlyn Jenner (4,090,000)
6. Khloe Kardashian (4,090,000)
7. Kanye West (3,350,000)
8. Kourtney Kardashian (2,740,000)
9. Kris Jenner (1,500,000)
10. Rob Kardashian (1,220,000)

Poor Rob, he’s so far down the list it’s not even funny. But when it comes to Justin Bieber, he’s still more famous than the Kardashians. Well, I guess it would be more accurate to say that no one Kardashian is more famous than him.

Update November 2018: I thought it would be fun to go back and run these numbers again, now, like, almost two years later and see how things have played out over time. Who is more famous now? These are how many people have Googled the listed celebrity in the last month.

1. Kylie Jenner (29,000,000)
2. Kim Kardashian (26,000,000)
3. Justin Bieber (7,200,000)

Talk about a major change. Kylie Jenner has now clearly overtaken her sister Kim in popularity, and both Kim and Kylie have outpaced Justin Bieber.

Update August 2022: I can’t believe how many years ago I wrote this original story, so why not go back again and do another update? First, let’s see how many people in an average month Google these three.

Google has changed the way they provide search data, so according to the new method, we found that they each get upwards of 10 million searches a month. That basically told us nothing.

So next, I did a Google trends report. Over the past year, we can see that Kim Kardashian was by far the most Googled over Kylie and Justin.

So how about in net worth?

1. Kim Kardashian ($1.4 billion)
2. Kylie Jenner ($700 million)
3. Justin Bieber ($285 million)

And then there is the social media showdown! Which of the three has the most Instagram followers and the best engagement? Let’s take a look and find out …

1. Kylie Jenner (@kyliejenner) 367,358,041 followers with a 1.70% engagement
2. Kim Kardashian (@kimkardashian) 329,413,105 followers with a 0.56% engagement
3. Justin Bieber (@justinbieber) 255,325,282 followers with 0.54% engagement

So this tells us that Kylie Jenner is still the social media queen. Not only does she have more followers, but she also has the best engagement, which is a major metric when it comes to the value of the account.