Mental Floss

From Wordle to ‘Wakanda Forever’: Here Are Google’s Top Search Trends of 2022

Did you Google the spaghetti recipe from 'The Bear'?
Did you Google the spaghetti recipe from 'The Bear'? | (Background) RLT_Images/DigitalVision Vectors/Getty Images; (Google homepage) Google, Wikimedia Commons // Public Domain

If anything could further prove that Wordle is the most popular kid on the virtual playground, it’s Google’s 2022 Year in Search report. The word-guessing game, created by Josh Wardle, was the year’s biggest trending topic.

Wordle also topped the list of 2022’s trending searches in games—and five other entries on that list were web-based guessing games inspired by the Wordle craze. Its influence even extended to the list of trending definition searches, eight of which were Wordle solutions (including rupee and tacit).

The lists, based on Google Trends data, comprise “search terms that had the highest spike this year as compared to the previous year.” So they aren’t necessarily the most searched terms overall—but they probably capture the zeitgeist of the last 12 months in a way that more perennially popular searches might not. In other words, if you look back at these lists in a decade or two, you stand a pretty good chance of identifying the corresponding year as 2022. 

Other trending searches that landed below Wordle in the top 10 include celebrities who passed away—Betty White, Queen Elizabeth II, Bob Saget, and Anne Heche—as well as a couple lottery-related terms and also Jeffrey Dahmer.

The movie winners were, in this order, Encanto, Thor: Love and Thunder, and Top Gun: Maverick; and other blockbuster favorites from the year like Everything Everywhere All at Once and Black Panther: Wakanda Forever made the list, too. On the TV side, Euphoria and Stranger Things took the top spots. Adam Levine came in first on the list of trending musicians and bands, though that probably had less to do with his music than he may have liked. 

See some of the highlights below, and explore the full slate of data—including results from other countries—here.

Overall Search Terms

  1. Wordle
  2. Election results
  3. Betty White
  4. Queen Elizabeth
  5. Bob Saget
  6. Ukraine
  7. Mega Millions
  8. Powerball numbers
  9. Anne Heche
  10. Jeffrey Dahmer

Definition Searches

  1. Rupee
  2. Oligarch
  3. Cacao
  4. Homer
  5. Recession
  6. Canny
  7. Foray
  8. Trove
  9. Saute
  10. Tacit

Game Searches

  1. Wordle
  2. Quordle
  3. Elden Ring
  4. Heardle
  5. Worldle
  6. Nerdle
  7. God of War Ragnarök
  8. Lost Ark
  9. Overwatch 2
  10. Globle

Movie Searches

  1. Encanto
  2. Thor: Love and Thunder
  3. Top Gun: Maverick
  4. The Batman
  5. Everything Everywhere All at Once
  6. Black Adam
  7. Jurassic World Dominion
  8. Black Panther: Wakanda Forever
  9. Morbius
  10. Turning Red

TV Show Searches

  1. Euphoria
  2. Stranger Things
  3. The Watcher
  4. Inventing Anna
  5. House of the Dragon
  6. Moon Knight
  7. Yellowstone
  8. The Summer I Turned Pretty
  9. Obi-Wan Kenobi
  10. She-Hulk: Attorney at Law

Recipe Searches

  1. Sugo
  2. Cincinnati Chili
  3. Marry Me Chicken
  4. Quick pancake
  5. Mango pie
  6. Green goddess salad
  7. Jennifer Aniston salad
  8. Grinder sandwich
  9. Bella Hadid sandwich
  10. The Bear spaghetti
Home/INTERNET