PornHub’s St Patrick’s Day data offers a weird insight into human nature

The traditional way to celebrate St Patrick's Day is to wear green and raise a glass of Guinness to the Emerald Isle in celebration of Ireland and its rich contribution to world culture.

From Dublin to Cork, revellers took to the pubs in honour of their patron saint while in Boston, Massachusetts, Americans paid tribute to their heritage across the Atlantic by dying the river green and brushing a tear from the eye at the thought of the old country, far away, its memory conjured by the wistful strain of a lone tin whistle.

But that's not the only way people chose to celebrate. Some chose to mark the day in a more... solitary manner.

According to PornHub Insights, which provides data on the world's biggest pornographic video streaming site, Sunday 17 March saw a 1,238 percent increase in searches for the term "leprechaun", a 1,048 percent spike for "st patricks day" and an 811 percent rise in searches for "shamrock", as well as a good deal of other less palatable enquiries related to the big day.

"On March 17, PornHub’s statisticians found that while overall traffic didn’t change, the average time spent per visit increased by around five percent," PornHub said. "Indicating that people may be taking (or needing) a bit more time to get the job done."

"Just as we found on previous years, misspelled searches increase on Saint Patrick’s day. Variations of 'hentai' increase by 18 percent including a 31 percent increase for 'hentia'. Searches for 'lebsian' increased by 19 percent and 'massagw' by 14 percent".

The influence of strong drink is no doubt in part to blame for the spelling errors.

The data provides a pretty hilarious insight into the seasonal nature of users' appetites for material. Committed curtain-drawers appear to like their pornography topical. Well, why ever be out of date?

PornHub Insights also revealed a huge 19 percent spike in traffic on 13 March when both Facebook and Instagram went down - telling us precisely where members of the online community turn to in times of adversity.

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