Money or Arlene Dickinson? What are we really interested in?

"arlene dickinson hot"

In the summer of 2010, I started a blog called "Money and Me for Canadian Families." Today, I took a look at the all-time stats for my blog to see which article has been the most read to date. It turns out that that there are two posts which are by far the most popular: Hard Knocks and Spare Change, Arlene Dickinson on Financial Literacy and Kevin O'Leary's Tough-love Approach to Kids and Money.

By comparison, all the other nearly 100 posts on personal finance, teaching kids about money at home and at school, reporting on big doings in financial literacy circles, politics and money, etc. have generated shockingly little interest.

Google search stats don't lie. The top six sets of Google keywords that have been leading people to my blog since inception are:

• "arlene dickinson" (this is by the far the highest by a thousand searches)
• "kevin o'leary children"
• "kevin o'leary family"
• "kevin o'leary kids"
• "arlene dickinson hot" (this search phrase was used 96 times!)
• "does kevin o'leary have children"

So what does this leave me with? The realization that most of the people who find my blog are not looking for financial education or resources. They are very likely Dragons' Den fans who are hungry for personal details about Canadian celebrity entrepreneurs like Dickinson and O'Leary.

This also confirms my observations over the last two years as a financial literacy blogger, producer and speaker that financial education products and services are not interesting to most Canadians. Is this because Canadians are already financially literate? I don't think so. I think our financial literacy is still low, largely as a result of this valuable subject being left out of the school curriculum.

So, if there is a need for financial literacy, why don't we want it? Why are we more interested in Arlene Dickinson's sex appeal and Kevin O'Leary's family life than our own money? I'd really like to hear what you think!

Copyright 2012. Laura Thomas. All Rights Reserved.
Contact moneyme at telus dot net.