Dont display multiple rows more than once in count query? - php

Question

I'm creating a website that COUNTS all the occurences of something.
Table:
Pizza John
Google John
Pizza Harry
Lets say you like google and pizza. It will show it like this:
John, John, Harry.
I would like it to appear like this:
John, Harry.
What am I doing wrong? Here's my code. Does it have anything to do with the while loop inside the while loop? How could I make it appear the way I want it to.. I can't figure it out.
$people_like = mysqli_query ($link,
"SELECT user_liked_by FROM (
SELECT COUNT(user_liked_by) AS total, id, user_liked_by
FROM whatilike WHERE whats_liked LIKE '%$thing_liked%' &&
user_liked_by !='$user'
GROUP BY user_liked_by
ORDER BY COUNT(user_liked_by) DESC ) as names;
");
while ($rpl = mysqli_fetch_assoc ($people_like)) {
$person_like_u = $rpl ['user_liked_by'];
$pluq = mysqli_query ($link, "SELECT profile_pic FROM users WHERE
username='$person_like_u'");
while ($pluqr = mysqli_fetch_assoc ($pluq)) {
$pli = $pluqr ['profile_pic'];
echo "<a href='profile.php?u=$person_like_u' >
<img src='data/user_photos/$pli' height='50px' width='50px'
style='border-radius:400px;' id='ioplu' ></a>";
}
}

Answer 1

$people = [];
while ($rpl = mysqli_fetch_assoc ($people_like)) {
$people[] = $rpl ['user_liked_by'];
}
$people = array_unique(array_map("trim",$people));
foreach($people as $p){
$pluq = mysqli_query ($link, "SELECT profile_pic FROM users WHERE
username='$p'");
while ($pluqr = mysqli_fetch_assoc ($pluq)) {
$pli = $pluqr ['profile_pic'];
echo "<a href='profile.php?u=$person_like_u' >
<img src='data/user_photos/$pli' height='50px' width='50px'
style='border-radius:400px;' id='ioplu' ></a>";
}
}