Through the Google Lens: Search Trends August 8-14
It’s Friday, which means it’s time for an A-through-Z of the week’s Google Search trends (see what I did there?)
Per-see … what is it?
As the skies lit up with the Perseid Meteor shower this week, there were more than a million Google searches around the topic from people on the hunt for shooting stars. Along with questions on how to pronounce it (that would be something in the region of “percy-id”), people were asking where to watch and how to photograph the summer show, with NASA promising up to a hundred meteors an hour if you got up early enough. These meteors streak through the Earth’s atmosphere for our viewing pleasure every year -- check out the annual spike in Google searches over the last decade for a record of when we spotted them.
Headlines from China
Shocking images of destruction continue to come out of China’s northern port city of Tianjin after a massive chemical explosion Wednesday. This eye-witness video posted on YouTube by Daniel Van Duren -- who says he was watching for shooting stars when the explosions happened -- has more than 60,000 views in 24 hours. With news outlets reporting that smoke is still rising from the industrial area where the blasts occurred, the million Google searches about Tianjin are focused on the “who, what, where, when, why” of the disaster.
This was the second time news from China appeared in the world’s Hot Trends this week. China’s surprise decision to devalue its currency prompted an additional 50,000 searches Tuesday.
Because there’s apparently a day for everything
It was an awesome week for left-handed middle children everywhere. Wednesday was National Middle Child Day, where the top rising search on Google was for this meme, which pretty much sums it up. Then Thursday was Left Handers Day, prompting a spike of more than 100,000 Google searches. Looking at the top questions asked on Google around this important day for southpaws, you all wanted to know how many people in general are left-handed, and how many U.S. presidents in particular (hard to confirm, but the White House tweeted that President Obama is one of them). Which brings us, naturally, to the next burning question on people’s minds: “Is Donald Trump left-handed?” File that one under “August.”
Abbi Tatton searched this week for "left-handed kangaroos."
