What South Africans Googled In 2020 (And No, It’s Not Just ‘Coronavirus’)

[imagesource: Getty]

Google has released its list of the top trending searches for 2020, and as one might expect, ‘coronavirus’, ‘election results’, and ‘Zoom’ led the way.

To be clear: these aren’t top searches or most-searched terms. Rather, they’re “searches that had a high spike in traffic over a sustained period in 2020 as compared to 2019”, says Google.

I contributed heavily to ‘election results’ – watching this past American election from afar, as the days dragged on, was hellish. Even more so than the one in 2016.

Indeed, as year-end content goes, it’s all rather depressing, with the exception of a few delightful questions like “where does vanilla flavouring come from?”

More on that in a minute.

First, this:

On to what people across the globe searched for:

1. Coronavirus
2. Election results
3. Kobe Bryant
4. Zoom
5. IPL
6. India vs New Zealand
7. Coronavirus update
8. Coronavirus symptoms
9. Joe Biden
10. Google Classroom

Click here for more.

Per Memeburn, and in keeping with the rest of the world, South Africa’s top search term was also ‘coronavirus’.

The top 10 trending South African searches were:

1. Coronavirus
2. US elections update
3. Sasol share price
4. Level 3 lockdown South Africa
5. Children’s Day
6. Hantavirus
7. Load shedding
8. Cigarettes ban South Africa
9. Teacher’s Day
10. Leap Day

Yeah, that cigarette ban was not a good time.

Top trending questions included:

1. How to apply for an unemployment grant?
2. Who won the election?
3. What time is the President on tonight?
4. What is coronavirus?
5. What is 5G?
6. Where does vanilla flavouring come from?
7. Why were Corn Flakes invented?
8. Where to buy beer during lockdown?
9. Why were chainsaws invented?
10. How to make hand sanitiser?

More South African search trends here.

If you’re still wondering why Corn Flakes were invented, here’s TripleM:

Corn Flakes were introduced in the late 19th century and [John Harvey] Kellogg was marketing the breakfast food as a “healthy, ready-to-eat anti-masturbatory morning meal”.

You know what’s great with an anti-masturbatory morning meal? Milk.

Apparently Kellogg was a staunch Seventh-day Adventist who firmly believed sex – whether alone or with someone – was unhealthy and immoral.

He never slept with his wife, all of his children were adopted, and he believed that meat induced desire, so eating something bland for breakfast was a good way to stave that off.

Now you can never unknow that.

Enjoy your cereal.

[source:triplem&memeburn]