Is Messi a "huge story"? I don't even know for what team he is playing. And as for Swift, I only know one of her songs name (pokerface, I guess?). As for Bieber, I never heard a single song and not interested to hear.

But in contrast, I have read lot of news about Durov.

Swift >> Messi >> Durov in popularity among the general population. Your unique interests may not generalize.

https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=today%205-y&ge...

Depends on how you measure popularity. Monthly listeners to Swift songs, watchers of Messi matches? way below 950 mln.

> I have yet to see evidence of this being a huge story for those people

Can you honestly claim that you keep in touch with those people?

I mean, this is an english-speaking us-centric forum. It is somewhat atypical for people here to actually know what happens outside this bubble.

> Can you honestly claim that you keep in touch with those people?

Nope, but maybe the data below can shed some light on it:

https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=today%205-y&ge...