Sarah Armstrong, an expert on Google Trends, joins the Mason Paine show to discuss the latest search trends in a variety of topics, including entertainment, culture, sports, technology, food, and odd news.
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August Google Trends Transcript
Mason Paine: August is coming to a close and Google trends expert. Sarah Armstrong joins to speak about this month’s top search trends. Thanks for joining me, Sarah.
Sarah Armstrong: Thank you so much for having me.
Mason Paine: Tell me what’s been happening for this month.
Sarah Armstrong: So in the month of August, we saw lots of different trends on Google, across entertainment, culture, sports, one that really caught my eye and we saw it explode on search.
Sarah Armstrong: Is this new game of throne, spinoff show, house of dragons. Have you heard about this?
Mason Paine: Absolutely. I know a lot of people are excited about it, but I have a confession. I haven’t really watched game of Thrones, so I feel like I’m, I’m a little backlog.
Sarah Armstrong: I actually have the same confession and I keep that quiet around my friends because they can’t believe I have gone all this time without giving into the peer pressure of diving into game of throne.
Sarah Armstrong: Maybe house of the dragon will do it for me. It’s like a prequel of the show. So you go back many, many years to see how it all began. And I know folks are very excited about it and it’s really popping off the search.
Mason Paine: Yeah, I think I can jump into this one. I, I think supposed to be 500 years from game of Thrones. So I’m like maybe I can jump in and not feel left behind.
Sarah Armstrong: Right? Exactly. We’re getting all the context for game of Thrones. So a lot of folks are searching for, oh, are some of these game of Thrones characters going to be in this show? That seems unlikely since it’s set so many generations before, but we’ll see.
Mason Paine: what else has been happening? I’m sure that’s not the only thing.
Sarah Armstrong: So something in the world of sports, pickle ball. Is a huge trend this month. This is a sport I had not heard of, but it’s currently being searched at an all time high on Google. It’s kind of a combination between tennis ping pong badminton, easier on the body form of tennis, as I would say, but we’re seeing over 5000% increase in searches for things like pick a ball tips for beginners, pickle, ball paddles for sale folks wanting to find a court near them. So it’s the hot new sport, right now.
Mason Paine: That is very misleading. I was hoping a pickle was involved.
Sarah Armstrong: I was like, oh, am I eating something? This sounds great. No, it is still an athletic event.
Mason Paine: I’m a little shocked that Kevin Durant wasn’t, on there, because I see that, Serena Williams was her retirement.
Sarah Armstrong: Yeah, Serena Williams really came up in search interest this month with her retirement. I think people are so used to seeing her over so many years. so Serena Williams retiring from tennis that increased over 5000% and a lot of questions about her career. So when did she start tennis? When did she go? Pro when did you win her 23rd title? Lots of interest in her.
Mason Paine: she was definitely a powerhouse in tennis. It’s gonna be kind of interesting to see who fills that void for her.
Sarah Armstrong: Totally. so those were definitely the big sports trends this month in more of the culture section, dating apps, online dating apps specifically that hit an all time high in search interest. So I guess love is in the air this month. Folks wanted to know how to start a conversation on a dating app, how to describe themselves on these apps. So it looks like people are on the apps more than.
Mason Paine: Yeah, whenever I go on Reddit, I always go and scroll on like the Tinder portion of it, just to see what people are putting up. And a lot of times people will be like, Hey, rank my profile. And I’m like, oh, you know, maybe I should put one up there.
Sarah Armstrong: totally, I love scrolling through my friends’ profiles and seeing what they’re putting dating apps based on music is also a top trend. So maybe folks are trying to find people that share some of their interest.
Mason Paine: Well, that would be interesting. I mean, you can go on your first date to a concert.
Sarah Armstrong: Totally. That sounds pretty fun actually.
Mason Paine: Right? That does. But who’s gonna pay for the tickets. I mean, do you go Dutch? How, how do we do this? I’ll ask the question. What about in anything in like some tech stuff?
Sarah Armstrong: Yeah. So in technology, the big trend this month was electric cars. Electric cars are actually being searched an all time high this year. And this month specifically because the inflation reduction act pass, and that includes a tax credit. For electric vehicle purchases. So we saw tax credit, EV being searched. We saw most affordable electric vehicles as a breakout search this month. So lots of folks are asking questions about electric cars, probably trying to get in on this tax credit and see how they can get one themselves.
Mason Paine: Yeah. I have a hybrid car. It’s old though. I think it’s like a 2009, but it gets me where I need to go.
Sarah Armstrong: Yeah. Do you like it? I actually, haven’t driven one before.
Mason Paine: It’s pretty good on gas, especially for like a 2009. I think I have 28 miles per gallon in city miles, which is amazing, but you have to put premium in it. So I’m like, eh, I guess that’s like the, the switch off on it.
Sarah Armstrong: Got it. Got it. Yeah, I think we’re, we’ll see a lot more on the roads if these search trends are in the indication.
Mason Paine: Yeah. I wouldn’t mind a Tesla, to be honest, they look really cool and comfortable.
Sarah Armstrong: They do look cool. I just saw this is kind of gross, but I just saw a story of somebody who actually put the Tesla key, implanted into their hand. So they can just put their hand up to open their Tesla, which is pretty wild.
Mason Paine: Wait the fob, they put the fob in their hand. Like what?
Sarah Armstrong: I just saw stories. Somebody, um, got FOB implant in, in their hands so they can just use their. Tesla.
Mason Paine: I mean, that’s some love right there, I guess, for your car, but I’m not that committed
Sarah Armstrong: yeah. That you have to be quite the Tesla fan to go that far. .
Mason Paine: Was there anything else that we missed cuz I feel like there’s probably more trending in August.
Sarah Armstrong: Definitely. So I don’t know if you’ve heard about these spotted lantern flies. There’s an invasive species of flies. They are spotted. They have bright colors. Uh, they’re pretty small, like maybe half of your thumb, but experts are saying that folks should go out and kill these flies if they can, because they’re really harmful to trees, particularly fruit trees, and they could really destroy the environments around them. So once folks said, okay, you should all go out and kill these flies, it became wild on social media, people going out, trying to find them hunting for these flies. So we saw a huge breakout surge interest in those flies this month.
Mason Paine: Yeah, we have a lot of invasive insects. I only know of one, the hammerhead worm, and I think it’s called the hammerhead worm. It just looks really weird. And, it takes all the nutrients out of the soil and it makes the land like dead and it’s an invasive species. So if you ever see it, you’re supposed to kill it. And, I I’m thankful it’s never been in my garden, but you know, I, I mean, if it’s invasive, it’s not supposed to be here. There’s no natural predators. It’s just gonna ravage.
Sarah Armstrong: Wow. Yeah, I, I have not heard of that one, but that just does sound kind of gross. I know these travel pretty easily, so they can kind of hitch a ride on the bottom of someone’s car scientists think that these lantern flies got to the Midwest underneath the train. So kind of literally hitch the ride on a train to spread further across the country. So lots of folks are looking up how to kill lantern flies. When do they go away? Do they bite luckily down. But they’re reporting them.
Mason Paine: Oh, here’s what I wanted to talk about. Barbiecore what is this? I thought it was music for a second.
Sarah Armstrong: Right. So Barbie core is a new fashion trend that we saw. A lot of people searching for. Barbie actually had over 5000% increase this month, same with Barbie style and then Barbie core trend. Of course. So this is wearing, I mean, kind of dressing like Barbie, the doll wearing bright pink neon clothes. A lot of celebrities are already doing it. Like Kim Kardashian Lizzo, Megan. So I think we’ll see more people rocking that bright pink.
Mason Paine: So wait, it’s just wearing pink, like hot pink or is it like a weird nineties or eighties Barbie thing?
Sarah Armstrong: It seems like kind of a hybrid of the two. but there is a Barbie movie it’s not coming out soon. It’s actually not until 20, 23, but some early shots of it were released. And I think that probably inspired some of the trends.
Mason Paine: Oh, okay. Cuz that, that was a little weird when I first saw the Barbie. I thought of, music, because there’s some kind like techno music always has some kind of core at the end of it. So I’m like, is this like Barbie pop, like, it was really weird and it’s clothes. Okay.
Sarah Armstrong: Yeah. Core is kind of what they tack onto a lot of these aesthetics now, but Barbie. Seems to do be the new one and that movie at stars, Margo Robbie and Ryan Goling. And there were some pictures of them in their bright pink and roller skates, getting ready for this film. So I think people got inspired
Mason Paine: well, you know, fashion is always weird to me, but I do love watching people try to keep up with the trends. It’s very interesting.
Sarah Armstrong: totally. And speaking of trends, you know, we saw some viral food. This month as well. One of him that caught my eye is banana peel bacon. This is a vegan take on bacon where you use banana peels and the other one here, Choco taco recipes. So Choco taco was discontinued last month and it looks like a lot of people are trying to make their own Choco taco this month.
Mason Paine: I was so disappointed childhood memories of chasing after ice cream trucks and getting the Choco taco. And now it’s gone. And I was one of those fool that ran out there and got a Choco taco .
Sarah Armstrong: Totally. I definitely ate chocolate tacos growing up. I had kinda forgotten about them. I haven’t had one in years until we got the news that they were discontinuing. And so now everyone is rushing to get one .
Mason Paine: Yeah, exactly. I was one of them. I was like, I, I just need one more, one Wharf to like, before I go. Was there any other trends that you found interesting, this past month.
Sarah Armstrong: Those were the big ones, you know, also on the, on the viral recipes, we saw grilled sunflower heads, which is not sunflower seeds. It’s literally the head of the sunflower. So I think with TikTok and people being, having been stuck at home in the past, they probably thought of these new recipes and are showing people online, which is pretty funny. But yeah, lots of interesting trends this month. And if you want to check out anymore, you can always go to google.com/trends.
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