If you want a snapshot of the conversations that dominated the UK in 2019, look no further than Google.
The search giant has released its annual Year in Search list to showcase all the things people in the UK were searching for throughout the year, from news events, to how to questions and even the top celebrities.
These top trending queries received a high spike in traffic over a sustained period in 2019 which helps Google to uncover what was hot and what was not over the past 12 months.
For 2018, the football World Cup and Meghan Markle dominated the search queries, as the UK was gripped with Three Lions fever and two royal weddings took place. But what about this year?
Here is Google’s Year in Search list for the UK in 2019.
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Rugby World Cup: With this year’s Rugby World Cup taking place in Asia for the first time, it’s no wonder this was the major event that people were googling, particularly that almost-win from the England team in the final.
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Cricket World Cup: One sporting event that England did triumph in, that Super Over win against New Zealand will go down in history as one of the most nail-biting sports finals. ‘What is a super over in cricket’ came in at number five on the top ‘what is’ searches.
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Game of Thrones: The groundbreaking TV show finally came to an end this year, though not without some hiccups along the way.
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Chernobyl: The re-telling of one of the worst nuclear disasters in history from HBO and Sky Atlantic was a surefire hit. ‘How to watch Chernobyl’ was also in the top 10 how to searches for 2019.
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Thanos: Avengers: Endgame was one of the biggest films of the year and the supervillain dominated search terms – though this might be partly to do with Google’s own Search easter egg.
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Notre Dame: The iconic Parisian cathedral was struck with a structure fire in April this year which caused destruction to the roof and spire, as well as damaging the windows and vaulted ceilings. Luckily, no one was killed. This was also the top news event search over the past 12 months.
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Avengers: Endgame: The hit Marvel film makes its second appearance on the top 10 most searched list.
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iPhone 11: There was a lot of hype around this year’s iPhone releases so it’s unsurprising to see the iPhone 11 was the top tech trend for 2019. The other top tech search was in the how to list, with people asking ‘How to tame a fox in Minecraft’.
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Caitlyn Jenner: One part of the famous Kardashian-Jenner dynasty, Caitlyn Jenner was the only family member to take the top 10 list this year, perhaps in part due to her appearance on the recent I’m A Celebrity: Get Me Out of Here series. Her stepdaughter, Khloe Kardashian, made the list last year.
- Joker: The second film on the list, the telling of Batman’s The Joker’s origin story drew fans and critics alike and has helped to propel the social media status of a staircase in the Bronx.
If you want to really dig into the cultural zeitgeist of the internet in 2019, then the ‘What is’ column is where the juicy searches were. At the top was ‘What is Area 51’ – following a joke viral Facebook post earlier this year that called for people to storm the US military base in Nevada to discover if there really are UFOs and extraterrestrials in residence.
‘What is D Day’, the name given to the Normandy landings in 1944, came in third, whilst ‘What is a VSCO girl’, a Gen-Z subculture, was the ninth most-popular what is query searched on Google in the UK in 2019.
Speaking about the 2019 Google search terms, one of the company’s trends experts, Kirstin Wright, said: “The 2019 Year in Search lists not only reveal the most popular trends from the past 12 months, but also give insight into the biggest events in the news, politics, sports, entertainment and even the latest lingo.
“As people continue to look for information in new and different ways, Google Search keeps evolving to make the world’s information accessible and useful to all.”
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