Google Top Searches Show We're More Unified Than We Think
With an election glacially, yet persistently approaching closer like the monster from It Follows, there's a lot of talk about red states and blue states, and a general sense of divisiveness all around. Social media is a warzone and people from neighboring states, let alone states across the country, have seemingly such different values that it's starting to feel like we're in some sort of Black Mirror experiment. (Spoilers: we were androids the whole time.)
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So how's about some unity for a change? We're not so different, you and I and everyone else, and nowhere is that more clear than this map of top trending Google searches.
I started us off in 2018 because I think that stretch is so fascinating, but feel free to scroll through the whole video. I'm not sure what cultural differences are being expressed when most of the country is searching for Cardi B while the Northwest is searching for Bitcoin Price and parts of the north Midwest is searching for Lil Pump, but I find it comforting that immediately we can all switch to searching for Logan Paul on a dime and then, immediately after, jump to Fortnite.
In fact, Fortnite might be the most unifying force in this country as it dominates a significant portion of 2018 before facing off in a battle against Baby Shark and Billie Eilish. It's wild to see every state in the nation be dominated by one topic such as it was by Joker in October of 2019 or Baby Yoda in December of 2019. But then it's just as fascinating to wonder, "Why doesn't Utah give a shit about Luke Perry in early 2019?" Is it a Mormon thing? Do Mormons have a secret beef with Luke Perry?
There are so many strange questions like this, especially when you scroll back to the beginning of the video having forgotten 90% of the cultural context for any given moment.
What was our fascination with McDonald's nutrition in 2010? Is that when we found out the burgers were made of people? And holy shit, was that really when the iPhone 4 came out? It feels like I got rid of my iPhone 4 like two months ago. WTF was the Dukan diet?
Answering such questions, I hope, can bring us all together, but at the very least, we apparently all stopped Googling coronavirus because of the goddamn Weeknd.
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