Check out what topics and searches have been trending during the month of January with Google Trends Expert, Sarah Armstrong.
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Mason Paine: New Year. And with that comes new trends. Sarah Armstrong, a Google Trends expert, joins me to break down the top search trends for January. Thanks for joining me, Sarah.
Sarah Armstrong: Thank you for having me.
Sarah Armstrong: So the month of January, a lot has happened and one of the biggest things, at least for me was the Golden Globes. Was that at least trending? I imagine it was for Google.
Sarah Armstrong: That was absolutely trending. Your right, the Golden Globes, they were on the 10th and lots of folks were searching for the red carpet, their favorite acceptance speeches. And we saw Jennifer Coolidge as the big trend of the night after her speech.
Mason Paine: Man, it was so funny. I really like Jennifer Coolidge. I love her. She’s so hilarious and I’m so happy that she won something because she’s so deserving of it.
Sarah Armstrong: Totally. She is such a treat. Did you watch the white Lotus?
Mason Paine: I actually haven’t. I heard really good stuff about it. It’s just so many things to watch.
Sarah Armstrong: Yeah, there are so many shows. She was just such a breakout star. So I think you’re exactly right. People were really excited to see her. We also saw lots of interest in some of the House of the Dragon folks, which I still have yet to see. And Austin Butler from Elvis, he was searched a lot as well.
Mason Paine: See House of the Dragon? I haven’t watched it at all. I’ve been seeing like YouTube clips and that’s pretty much it. That’s the limit of me. But from what I’ve seen, it looks excellent. And I’m kind of thinking of picking up something of the Game of Thrones spin off with here.
Sarah Armstrong: Totally. I’ve always been a little too afraid to watch Game of Thrones. I did finally get around to watching everything everywhere all at once because Michelle Yo was trending so much and it was very good.
Mason Paine: Oh my God, I’m so happy you watched that because I loved that movie. I went in to the theater thinking it was just going to be a regular kung fu movie and I love Michelle Yo and it was like a mother daughter thing. And I was like, this is beautiful. I have everything I want. I have drama, action. You couldn’t ask for more.
Sarah Armstrong: It was beautiful. I loved it. Which, funny, as I thought it was only a mother daughter thing and I did not know about the action element. I was expecting like a ladybird kind of thing. So I was like, wow, you’ve also got the action and the drama. It’s pretty awesome.
Mason Paine: And I thought it was really cool that the dude from Goonies was in it. Oh, I can’t even remember his name, but I always remember him. Goonies. And he played in Indiana Jones as the kid.
Sarah Armstrong: Yeah, totally. And I’m blanking on his name as well. But yes, I’m so glad to see him getting all of that recognition. And that was just such a popular search item. The other one that really popped up in the trends was Wednesday. I have yet to see it, but I know Jenny Ortega, who stars in that show, is apparently awesome.
Mason Paine: Yeah, I binge that. See, this is why I wasn’t watching the White Lotus or House of the Dragon. I was on Wednesday and it was pretty good. I had to just treat it as just another way of retelling the Adams family. And once I got through that, I was able to actually enjoy it because I was like, what is this? Who are these people? What’s happening? I was like, you know what? Just enjoy it. And it was pretty good. I liked it.
Sarah Armstrong: Totally. One of our top trends coming out of the Golden Globes was, did Jenna Ortego win a Golden Globe? She didn’t, but maybe next year.
Mason Paine: Oh, wait, who did then? Who won in the category?
Sarah Armstrong: Let’s see, we have oh, I think Jennifer Coolidge is the one in that category. I’ll have to double check.
Mason Paine: She wasn’t going to win. Jennifer Coolidge had it in the bag. Another thing that happened in January was the release of Harry’s book. Prince Harry’s book, his memoir. Was that trending at all?
Sarah Armstrong: Definitely. So Prince Harry came out with his memoir there. What I thought was kind of funny is Harry Styles is usually our top trending harry. But this time Prince Harry has taken his place. This month, folks had lots of questions about the book. One of the top trending questions was Prince Harry’s name Harold, because his brother calls him that. I guess that’s just a nickname from his brother because his name is actually Henry and folks were interested in how much is the book, how many copies has it sold? So lots of interest here.
Mason Paine: I was hesitant. I was like, should I get the book? Should I not? And I kind of wanted to, but I’m glad I didn’t because I saw a little excerpt on Reddit about his mother’s lotion and I was like, okay, I don’t need to know more. And if you haven’t seen it, you should Google it because it’s kind of weird for him to talk about that. But I mean, I guess that’s his memory, so that’s his life. I just wouldn’t have seen that.
Sarah Armstrong: I’ve seen a lot of odd excerpts. I feel like I’ve read the book because I’ve seen so much coverage on it, but I actually still have yet to read it.
Mason Paine: Do you plan to?
Sarah Armstrong: Maybe bits and pieces of it. I’ve listened to some fun podcasts that really break down different chapters. It is the top trending book this month on Google, so I know lots of other folks are probably reading it. Maybe they can give me a good summary.
Mason Paine: Yes. Isn’t that the truth? I kind of feel like I interpret things incorrectly, so I hope somebody smarter is reading books for me so they can explain it to me exactly. Because for a while I did get confused about the Harold part, I was like, wait, is that his real name? What’s happening? I don’t understand the intricate of, I guess the royal family.
Sarah Armstrong: Totally. And there’s also cultural differences with England. The second top trending question when the book was released is what is a biro? And that’s just the word for a ballpoint pen that folks use in the UK. And Americans are curious about these British specific terms.
Mason Paine: Oh, my God. A biro. I didn’t even realize that. Just call it a pen, bro. It’s been so much easier. I feel like there’s too many syllables by row.
Sarah Armstrong: Totally.
Mason Paine: Was there anything else that was happening in entertainment this month?
Sarah Armstrong: Those were the two big ones. We see some questions about what’s to come. Like, Oscar nominations are absolutely trending right now, so I think we’ll see Grammys, probably the Super Bowl halftime show. We have some fun entertainment news coming up, and we’ll have lots of trends next month for that.
Mason Paine: Speaking of Super Bowl, was that ever trending, the NFL playoffs?
Sarah Armstrong: Absolutely. NFL is currently trending. It’s been trending. Folks are really excited for the Super Bowl coming up, and they were really engaged in the playoffs. The match that we saw the most search interest for was that Eagles versus Giants match up. And as we know now, the Eagles are going to take it all the way to the Super Bowl.
Mason Paine: Yeah. I’m not big into football. I’m trying to get into football because, I don’t know, I feel like I need to widen my diversity in sports besides NBA. So I was watching it, and the only one I caught was last night was the Chiefs. And I was so shocked at the last few seconds, the Chiefs were able to pull it out and they won. And I was like, okay, so now it’s Chiefs versus the Eagles. This ought to be interesting. I’m a little bit scared because Mahomes, he has an injury. I think it’s either his knee or his ankle. So I’m wondering usually he runs the ball. So how are they going to win this? I hope he doesn’t hurt himself for the Super Bowl.
Sarah Armstrong: Right. He’s actually the top search player right now, so lots of folks asking questions about him and the Chiefs in general. We’re seeing so much search interest there. Illinois, it’s their top search team. I was sort of a fair weather fan for the 49 Ers because I’m from the West Coast. But now that they’ve been taken out, I’ll have to figure out who to root for.
Mason Paine: Yeah. Coin flip. You’re going to choose the Chiefs or you’re going to choose the Eagles? I’m the same way. If my team doesn’t make it, I’m like, okay, I got to figure out who I’m rooting for. Who’s the bad guy here?
Sarah Armstrong: Exactly.
Mason Paine: What else has been going on? I know there’s some stuff with air travel. What’s been going on there?
Sarah Armstrong: Totally. So air travel continues to be at top of mind for folks. There are all those wild flight delays over the holidays and we’re still seeing questions about air travel move into January, especially with outage from the FAA that happened this month. So is air travel back to normal? That’s the top question that folks are asking there. People also want to know how long does a flight have to be delayed for you to get compensated for it, how much compensation will you get? So lots of questions on delayed flights and actually a lot more on delayed flights and canceled flights.
Mason Paine: Wow. Are you a frequent flyer or do you drive a lot?
Sarah Armstrong: I am a pretty frequent flyer, I would say I live in New York City, so pretty much no driving happens at all. What about you?
Mason Paine: yeah, absolutely. I could see that in New York. But no, I would prefer driving. I love to drive to other places if I have the chance to because I don’t know why. Just flying, I get so much anxiety. I’m like, oh, they want to check my bag. Should I just do one bag? Should I just wash my clothes while I’m there? Should I buy new clothes? Am I going to be totally lazy? What am I doing? I really like being able to be like, oh, stop at this store. I just want to see what they have in this random town in USA. Whatever, right?
Sarah Armstrong: I was going to say the amount of time it takes to get through security, you get to the airport hours early, you’d probably be well on your way on the road. So I think we’ll probably see a lot more folks start to do those drives. I’ve always romanticized. Maybe a cross country road trip, but I’m not sure if that’s too officious.
Mason Paine: Oh, man. I will say the longest trip I’ve ever done was from all the way from Chicago to the very bottom of Texas. And that took jeez, it took us two days to drive it. It was a pain, but I love it. Like, thinking about it, I’m like, oh, I don’t want to do it, but once I’m in the car, I’m like, okay, we’re going to have so much fun.
Sarah Armstrong: And you’re passing through all these states. Were you driving non stop for the two days?
Mason Paine: Oh, yeah, we passed by what is it, some kind of like state park? National park, where in Arkansas where you can go there and mine for diamonds in a field. I’ve been telling my dad we need to stop there and see if we can get some diamonds. Man, we could be rich.
Sarah Armstrong: That would be awesome. I need to go check that out.
Mason Paine: Speaking of geography and all that other stuff, when it comes to science, is there anything that was trending this month?
Sarah Armstrong: We had some interesting trends in the science category, first being the extreme rain that California especially experienced. Lots of questions about why it was raining so hard in the state that’s been experiencing such drought, what are atmospheric rivers? So lots of questions there bomb cyclones. And then the other big science topic was this Earth inner core study. It came out recently that the inner core of Earth is actually stopping its rotation and maybe even changing direction. So breakout searches around Earth core stopped, earth core reversed, which is pretty interesting.
Mason Paine: Out of curiosity, was there any concrete answer of what would happen if the Earth just stopped? Like what?
Sarah Armstrong: Right. So I looked into this. What’s interesting is the inner cores rotation really has nothing to do with the crust of the Earth’s rotation. So they’re quite independent. So it can change rotations, it can change directions or stop, and it won’t actually affect our spinning of the Earth. So it sounds like we don’t have anything to worry about, but they were able to detect it through the waves that happen with earthquakes. Kind of interesting.
Sarah Armstrong: Totally. It’s fascinating.
Mason Paine: Now, one of the things I love talking about every month, what’s the weird? What’s the strange? What’s the odd? What happened in Google that was really weird?
Sarah Armstrong: So something that may not seem weird on the surface, but I definitely looked into jury duty was top trending this month, to which I asked, why isn’t that sort of something that happens every month? Why are people so interested in jury duty? I dug a little more into it, and a woman who skipped jury duty was told to write a 30 page essay as her punishment, which is pretty funny. So we looked at some of those jury duty trends, and the top question people ask is how to get out of jury duty.
Mason Paine: Oh, man. That is weird. That’s a strange one. I’ll be honest. I have never been summoned neck on wood to go to jury duty in my entire life either.
Sarah Armstrong: Right. Maybe I shouldn’t say that out loud, but I still haven’t.
Mason Paine: My dad has gotten it so many times, it’s disgusting how many times he had to go to jury duty, but he only actually got chosen to do the jury one time that I remember. I’ll have to ask him, but he’s been like, there so many times. He’s like, yeah, you get, like, sandwiches, and you get the cookies and all this other stuff. I’m like I want cookies. I don’t want to go.
Sarah Armstrong: Yeah, totally. One of my coworkers loves jury duty. She feels like she’s in a movie in the courtroom. So some people like it, but it sounds like most people want to get out there.
Mason Paine: Right? It’s like, hey, you get paid for it. Go for it.
Sarah Armstrong: Totally.
Mason Paine: Another thing I love about our little thing that we do is food. I have to know what food was trending this month.
Sarah Armstrong: Well, it’s girl scout cookie season. It always starts in January. And so we saw lots of girl scout cookie trends. Folks are very excited. The most searched girl scout cookie of all time is Finmind, which feels right to me. That’s my favorite. Folks also wanted to know what vegan girl scout cookies there were. And in Illinois, adventure pools are the most popular one. That’s like a cure on all type cookies.
Mason Paine: I’ve never heard of that. I get the coconut. What is it, samoa? Is that Samoa’s?
Sarah Armstrong: Oh, yeah, samoa.
Mason Paine: I love that one. I could live my life just eating that one cookie. So delicious. But adventurefuls, that’s a strange one, I have to say. I’ve never heard of like what?
Sarah Armstrong: I know. I hadn’t either. But the top search cookie this year is called raspberry rally. It’s a new cookie. It looks a lot like cinnamon, but it has a raspberry center, so we might have to give it a try.
Mason Paine: I don’t know. My cousin, she’s not in girl scouts anymore. And that was where I was getting all my stock, so this is going to be difficult.
Sarah Armstrong: Good to have a girl scout connection, though, right?
Mason Paine: I had one. I used to get boxes of that stuff.
Sarah Armstrong: Oh, my gosh, that sounds so good. I still need to make my order, but I know it’s going to be thin men for me. Maybe it should throw some OAS in there.
Mason Paine: Yeah, throw some samos in there. Think of me when you’re having your coffee. You just dip it in there a little bit. I think it’s delicious. I love it.
Sarah Armstrong: That sounds so good.
Mason Paine: Well, Sarah, thank you so much. I always love talking to you and I appreciate you being here. For those listening, where can they find more information about all these topics we talked about?
Sarah Armstrong: You can check out trends google.com to see what’s trending in real time.
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