The coronavirus pandemic has probably pulled off the biggest before-after in India than any other country in the world. According to the recently released Google Trends 2020, there were some drastic changes in what Indians searched in 2020 than what they did in 2019. In just one year, dance classes were replaced by food shelters at the top of the Near Me list and checking NEET results by Paneer recipes on the How-To list.
But just as any other before-after, some things remained the same. For instance, cricket topped the Indian Trends list overall in both years. It was the World Cup in 2019 and the IPL in 2020.
“Historically, pandemics have forced humans to break with the past and imagine their world anew. This one is no different. It is a portal, a gateway between one world and the next.” – Arundhati Roy
Going by Ms. Roy’s analogy, if coronavirus was our collective portal into a new world, Google Trends is the GoPro camera on our collective heads. Keeping a track of how past everything around us is changing and how much.
India learned ‘How To’ cook paneer in 2020
2020 How To list was overwhelmed with food recipes for paneer, cake, jalebi, and the viral dalgona coffee. This was in stark contrast to 2019, which had no food recipes in its How To top 10.
There were a couple of constants here, like the Fastag and linking Aadhaar to PAN. But the saddest change had to be the disappearance of “How To check NEET result” in 2020 given how chaotic the entrance exams were in 2020.
Coronavirus had a huge impact on the How-To lists. ‘How to increase immunity’, ‘How to make sanitizer at home’, and ‘How to prevent coronavirus’ featured in the top 10 How To searches.
Priorities changed drastically ‘Near Me’
The Near Me feature in Google allows us to find various establishments offering specific services near us. This list perhaps saw the most significant shift in priorities. From dance classes, salons, costume stores, saree shops, and spas in 2019, Indians searched for food shelters, night shelters, and COVID test centers in 2020.
There was the ironic top search of ‘cracker shops near me’ in 2020, ironic because COVID-19 is mainly a lung disease.
Sushant broke our hearts over and over
Bollywood actor Sushant Singh Rajput’s suicide in June 2020 broke as many hearts as it broke records of an actor’s death making news. From Bollywood heavyweights and national politicians to Bihar and Mumbai police officials, everyone had something to say on the Sushant case.
However, it was not Sushant but his last film that released posthumously made it to the Trends list. Not only that, Dil Bechara was one of the most searched terms overall as well.
Sushant Singh’s influence was felt across other verticals like Personalities, Movies, Overall, and What is…
Journo replaced Bollywood biggies on Personalities
Republic TV founder Arnab Goswami stood second on the list of most searched personalities in 2020, leaving behind biggies like Amitabh Bachchan and Kangana Ranaut. Out of the five Bollywood entries on the list, two were related to COVID – Amitabh Bachchan and Kanika Kapoor. Arnab also made it to the top 10 most searched trends overall.
Meanwhile, the other three were related to actor Sushant Singh’s suicide – Kangana Ranaut, Ankita Lokhande, and Rhea Chakraborty. In fact, Arnab Goswami himself was in the limelight for his reports on the Sushant Singh suicide case. Needless to say, Sushant Singh, himself was missing from the personalities list.
Another interesting trend was that in 2019, the Personalities list had only Indians on it. But in 2020, India had searched at least three popular international politicians – US President-elect Joe Biden, US Vice-President-elect Kamala Harris, and North Korea’s Supreme Leader Kim Jong Un.
2020 was the Year of TV/Web Series
Google divides its annual Year in Trends lists into nine categories. The categories themselves had one major change from 2019 to 2020. The Songs list was replaced by TV/Web series. Stuck at home during the COVID lockdown, more and more Indians turned to the OTT platforms for entertainment as well as sanity.
Besides the international bigwigs like Netflix, Prime Video, and Disney+, the desi OTT platforms like Voot, AltBalaji, SonyLiv also gained traction. The Spanish crime drama Money Heist topped the list, followed by SonyLiv’s Scam 1992: The Harshad Mehta Story, the reality show Bigg Boss, Prime Video’s Mirzapur 2, and Pataal Lok.
What’s more, most of the movies on the Movies list on 2020 Trends were released on OTT platforms since theatres remained shut due to the lockdown.
Movies saw a fair amount of reduction in popularity in 2020 with the tally of movies making it to the Overall list reducing from four to zero. Even though a whole entertainment category had to be introduced in 2020, the Overall search was dominated by more serious concerns like the coronavirus and election results.
When Binod ruled the internet in 2020
In a first, India saw its first big meme trend in 2020. Binod was a meme that went viral in August 2020. It had incepted from that one user who would only comment his first name, Binod, under every YouTube video. The YouTube comment was first flagged in Slayy Point’s video, “Why Indian Comments Section is Garbage (BINOD)”.
So, what did you search for in 2020?