What Google Saw During Its Year In Search: Mostly Violent, and no Kim Kardashian

Google has released its annual Year In Search.

Well, its either been a good year or a bad year depending on how 2015 went for you.

For me it was pretty good all in.

It was my first full year of being self employed as a fulltime freelancing digital nomad, and by and large, it’s gone good.

It’s been a lot of hard work, and there’s been some fairly momentous moments, but it’s also been a lot of fun. In fairness, perhaps I could have spent more time my family instead of hammering out Tech articles and stories from dawn until dusk, but I’ve always liked being able to afford groceries and other luxuries like electricity, water and the internet, so I’ve not had much of a choice…

But for a number of years now, part of my routine, in the run up to Christmas, has been to Google Google, and see what everyone else Googled during the year.

If you’ve never searched for it, I can really recommend taking a few moments and having a look at Google’s Year In Search. And for the world in general, let’s face it it’s been quite a year.

From the Paris attacks to Charlie Hebdo to Lamar Obdon and Catelyn Jenner, to the Greek economy and Star Wars, a lot of stuff has happened.

Paris, unsurprisingly loomed large with 897 million people searching for news and information on the November tragedy. The most asked question in relation was “What happened in Paris.” Well even now, after the dust has settled, I’m not really sure. Perhaps the biggest question, will always be: Why?

“How can I help Nepal,” was also a key topic chosen by Google, following the Nepal earthquake, with Google citing the fact that in the midst of everything that seemed to be going wrong with the world, there was some reassurance in the fact that people were also asking what they could do to volunteer and donate where they could.

The world also found itself turning to Google to ask key questions about the migrant crisis in Europe. “Where are the refugees coming from?” was a popular choice for many. Gun control was yet again brought under the spotlight in the US in what now seems to an unwelcome annual regular. “Why do we need gun control?” and “Why won’t gun control work,” were the questions that people asked to understand what was going on.  With more than 160,000,000 searches on the topic, interest was high.

Of course, in a 365-day year, it wasn’t all bad news.

Caitlyn Jenner was searched for 344 million times as she became the world’s most talked about new woman on the scene. Lamar Obdon was also a ridiculously high trending statistic as well. So while the Kardashian clan still became one of the world’s most popular searches, at least it wasn’t all about Kim, who didn’t break the top 10. At least there’s hope on that front.

Surprisingly, as Google itself notes, the Star Wars film, despite looking like it’s about to annihilate every box office record going, was still trumped by 2005’s Revenge of the Sith. And on that note, we won’t mention any more about Trump. Except to say that Darth Vader was the most searched for character from a galaxy far, far, away.