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May 29, 2022

Search Trends - Or How To Feel Clueless In One Easy Step

Every once in a while, I go look at what Google is reporting are the latest search trends - and it always makes me feel like I'm living under a rock or something. A good 90% of the time, I have no idea what it is people are looking for. You'd think I'd stop doing this then, but I actually find my misunderstandings pretty entertaining sometimes. For example, I saw that "Nottingham Forest" was a trending search term, and I thought "huh, that's got to be something about Robin Hood, right? Why is Robin Hood suddenly popular?" Yeah, no. It turns out it's a football club/soccer team (depending on where you are in the world). Their home base is Nottinghamshire, England - which is also the location of Sherwood Forest which is what I should have been associating with Robin Hood. So close, but no cigar.

Lest you think it's just that I'm clueless about foreign sports teams and their various stars, I also saw that "Colorado Avalanche" was trending - and immediately assumed there'd been a natural disaster in the Rockies. This time, at least, I was relieved to find out that's actually the name of an ice hockey team. It's not just sports that I'm clueless about, though. There are always various celebrity names trending, and I rarely recognize them either. Sometimes even searches that I am pretty sure I know end up throwing me a curve ball. I saw Yellowstone was trending, and assumed there was news from the National Park, but it was about the TV show. This time, I was at least aware that there is a Yellowstone show - so progress!

By the way, if you're tempted to go browse the latest search terms yourself, let me leave you with a word of warning. Every once in a while I learn about something I really wish I hadn't. This time it was that there is a horror movie coming out called "Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey". What?!? WHY?!?! I think chainsaw murderers and scary freaking clowns should have been scary enough. There's no reason to turn Piglet into a some sort of maniac, thank you very much.

Thanks for reading!