There was one thing on everybody's mind in 2021: Money.
On Wednesday, Google released 2021's top trending searches in the United States. Top trending searches are the most popular searches unique to the past year, not generally popular topics that show up in search charts year after year.
From the overall most popular searches of the year, to more specific queries like "how to pronounce" something, people had a lot of questions about topics related to money. That included searches about cryptocurrencies, meme stocks, stimulus checks, the lottery, and, of course, Squid Game — the blockbuster Netflix series about wealth inequality and debt.
Top trending searches
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NBA
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DMX
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Gabby Petito
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Kyle Rittenhouse
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Brian Laundrie
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Mega Millions
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AMC Stock
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Stimulus Check
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Georgia Senate Race
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Squid Game
People turned to Google for information about stimulus checks, with that term appearing in the top ten lists for general searches, news searches, and updates. In the "How to be" category, "How to be eligible for stimulus checks" was the most popular query. "How to be happy with yourself" came in at number eight.
That there would be a high interest in free money makes a lot of sense. But less straightforward ways of getting paid also dominated our Google searches.
Multiple top searches in different categories had to do with viral cryptocurrencies and meme stocks. For example, "AMC Stock" came in as the sixth most popular search of 2021. It was also the number two most popular News search, coming in behind searches for Mega Millions. GME (the stock ticker for GameStop) got number four in that category.
Top trending 'News' searches
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Mega Millions
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AMC Stock
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Stimulus Check
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Georgia Senate Race
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GME
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Dogecoin
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Hurricane Ida
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Kyle Rittenhouse verdict
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Afghanistan
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Ethereum price
Those stats mean people turned to Google to understand why seemingly random stocks were going through the roof. They may have discovered the stunning influence of the subreddit r/wallstreetbets on the global stock market. Remember back in January 2021 when Robinhood traders decided to take on hedge funds? Good times!
Cryptocurrency queries accounted for half of the top ten "Where to buy" searches.
Cryptocurrency queries accounted for half of the top ten "Where to buy" searches. "Dogecoin" was the most popular search in that category, as well as the "How to pronounce" category. You can probably thank Elon Musk for the popularity of the cryptocurrency that started as a joke, since the billionaire boosted it on Twitter throughout the year. "Where to buy NFTs" placed high up there, too.
Top trending 'Where to buy' searches
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Dogecoin*
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Shiba coin*
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PS5
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safemoon*
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N95 mask
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XRP*
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NFT
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Baby Doge*
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Xbox Series X
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Squishmallows
(*Indicates a cryptocurrency-related topic).
The prevalence of these digital-financial topics jumping from the headlines to the public's search bars did not surprise Nate Bengali, a financial adviser at the finance services company Personal Capital. Bengali said it mirrors the questions his clients asked throughout the year: Questions about whether people should be buying GameStop, or having cryptocurrency assets in their portfolios.
"There was a lot of confusion on why there were all these huge gains, with people just making so much money on it," Bengali said. "Fear of missing out kind of took over people's mindset."
The search data also represents a shift in the prevalence and accessibility of personal finance, and the stock market in particular. Thanks to services like Robinhood, so-called "retail investors" were more active and powerful than ever. Information resources like Google became go-tos for financial topics, when more traditional human advisers might have played that role before.
"It's just become more mainstream to talk about really anything in terms of investing," Bengali said.
In the background of these searches is the precarious and shifting state of American wealth. While the wealth of billionaires like dogecoin-loving Elon Musk blew up, so did headlines about DIY investors making millions overnight. While unemployment peaked in mid-2020, 2021 saw the Great Resignation, where many people decided that going back to unsatisfying, low-paying jobs just wasn't worth it.
Top trending 'How to be' searches
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How to be eligible for stimulus check
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How to be more attractive
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How to be happy alone
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How to be a baddie
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How to be a good boyfriend
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How to be a good kisser
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How to be a flight attendant
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How to be happy with yourself
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How to be mindful
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How to be romantic
Trending financial searches may reflect curiosity about how people could get in on the latest boom when traditional work started to seem like more and more of a raw deal, especially compared to the ballooning wealth of billionaires.
Unfortunately, where there's a boom, there's usually also a bust. So maybe do more than a few Googles before betting it all on Dogecoin, people.
