“This year, our search histories spoke to our interest in alternative assets like cryptocurrencies and NFTs, as well as persistent economic insecurity, evidenced by our questions about when we’d get our stimulus checks and if we’d qualify for student loan forgiveness. The cultural rift between millennials and Gen Z cropped up in queries about what type of hair parts and jeans were in style, as did other social media trends that seemingly appealed to everyone, like how to make TikTok pasta or Squid Game cookies. And finally, in the year when Covid-19 vaccines became widely available, many Americans turned to the search engine to figure out how to be a normal person again, as people once again attended in-person events and had to figure out what pants people wear that aren’t sweatpants.” And of course, there were the Bernie Mitten memes that won the year in its first few weeks. What Google’s trending searches say about America in 2021.

+ Google: The Year in Search 2021. And Global Search Trends.