Google has released its Google Trends for the year, and looking over the stats for searches in the US, as well as the global searches, there’s some interesting insights into the entertainment people wanted to know more about in 2020.
The most searched term in the US was “election results;” globally, it was “coronavirus,” for reasons that should be obvious. Tom Hanks was the most searched-for actor, in the US and globally, likely because he was the first major celebrity to contract COVID-19.
The impact of COVID-19 can also be seen in searches that start with “Where To Buy,” with “toilet paper” ranking high. But in the US, “Where to buy PS5” was the top search, ahead of toilet paper in second. Of course, in a normal year it would not be that surprising that the new PlayStation was in rarer supply than toilet paper, and anyone seeing this headline after time traveling here from 2019 would be confused and worried. But 2020 was not a normal year.
The Xbox Series X was the 4th most popular “where to buy” search term, while the Nintendo Switch–which had fewer supply issues, but still sold out earlier this year–landed 7th.
If you’re still searching for the new consoles, GameSpot has restock guides for both:
Among Us was the most searched-for game in 2020, which makes sense–not only because it was a phenomenon, but because people likely wanted to try and figure out how a mobile game from 2018 blew up so suddenly this year. Fall Guys, Valorant, Genshin Impact, and Ghost of Tsushima make up the rest of the top 5 in the US; globally, the list is almost the same, but with The Last of Us 2 pipping Ghost of Tsushima.
In the US and globally, Parasite was the most searched-for movie, suggesting that Bong Joon-ho’s Best Picture winner has been popular with people in lockdown.
The full Google Trends stats are an interesting way of reflecting back on the year that was–make sure you look at the “how to help” searches if you want to feel better about the world, and note that “baby platypus” was a major search term in 2020.
