Google Reveals Top Trending Searches For 2020

From “WAP” to home haircutting tips, Google’s 2020 search list is a snapshot of one very weird year.

If in the future someone asks what it was like to be alive and aware in 2020, it’s hard to think of a better thumbnail sketch of where the world was than Google’s Year In Search list.

If you look at the list below of the most common searches typed into Google between January 1 and today, it’s easy to see this as a temperature reading. And in 2020, everyone had some kind of fever. For politics, information about the novel coronavirus, for Cardi B and Megan Thee Stallion singing about “WAP.” 

Political fever consumed much of the United States throughout the presidential election, hence the appearance of now president-elect Joe Biden at the top of the list for politicians and of course, “Election results” on the list of top terms in general. 

Just under that term, the three most common searches for 2020 aside from “Kobe Bryant“—the NBA star died along with his daughter and several others in a tragic helicopter crash in January—were all coronavirus related. So were several other more “niche” searches, like terms related to what Google calls “Beauty how-tos.” A lot of people apparently relied on the internet to tell them “How to cut men’s hair at home.” 

One rational conclusion a historian could draw from that phrase trending all year is this was a pretty bad year for hairstyles. 

Popular among searches for definitions: “WAP.” Even with lyrics containing phrases like, “Bring a bucket and a mop,” it was apparently just not all that obvious to Google users that Cardi B and Megan Thee Stallion were singing about “Wet-ass pussy”   

You can either check out Google’s “Year In Search” for 2020 by clicking that link—or see the summaries of each category in the list below.

Searches
Election results
Coronavirus
Kobe Bryant
Coronavirus update
Coronavirus symptoms

Actors
Tom Hanks
Chris D’Elia
Jada Pinkett Smith
Timothée Chalamet
Ricky Gervais

Athletes
Ryan Newman
Tom Brady
Bubba Wallace
Mike Tyson
Rudy Gobert

Politicians
Joe Biden
Kamala Harris
Boris Johnson
Pete Buttigieg
Mike Bloomberg

Musicians and Bands
Shakira
August Alsina
Adele
Doja Cat
Grimes

Definitions
WAP
Entanglement
Antebellum
Pandemic
Asymptomatic

News
Election results
Coronavirus
Stimulus checks
Unemployment
Iran

Beauty how-tos
How to cut men’s hair at home
How to plop hair
How to color your hair at home
How to wash your hands
How to style curtain bangs

Loss
Kobe Bryant
Naya Rivera
Chadwick Boseman
George Floyd
Ruth Bader Ginsburg

How to donate…
How to donate to Black Lives Matter
How to donate to Australian bushfires
How to donate blood
How to donate to Georgia Senate runoff
How to donate to Goodwill

Movies
Parasite
1917
Black Panther
Harley Quinn: Birds of Prey
Little Women

TV Shows
Tiger King
Cobra Kai
Ozark
The Umbrella Academy
The Queen’s Gambit

Where to buy…
Where to buy PS5
Where to buy toilet paper
Where to buy face masks
Where to buy Xbox Series X
Where to buy hand sanitizer

Games
Among Us
Fall Guys: Ultimate Knockout
Valorant
Genshin Impact
Ghost of Tsushima

… during coronavirus
Best stocks to buy during coronavirus
Dating during coronavirus
Dentist open during coronavirus
Unemployment during coronavirus
Jobs hiring during coronavirus