From sourdough to BLM – what 2020 Google searches say about us

People often blame the internet and modern technology for a general “dumbing down” of our society and culture. We’re drowning in the shallows along with Donald Trump, Kim Kardashian and the cast of Love Island Australia.

But what if the opposite were true and the internet was tapping into our curiosity and expanding our knowledge of the world? So not dumbing down but smartening up.

Australia’s Google searches for 2020 back this up.

US President-elect Joe Biden was one of the most googled names in Australia in 2020.Credit: AP

Early in the year, while the wet markets in Wuhan were certainly a topic of discussion, we were more focused on the devastating bushfire season. We searched “Fires near me”, “wildlife rescue” and “air quality Melbourne”. Celeste Barber, the comedian who raised millions for rural fire services was our number one trending public figure.

Even in the United States the top two searches concerning how to donate to a cause were to Black Lives Matter and then to Australian bushfire relief. Then again, the top two offspring that Americans searched for were the baby of eccentric billionaire Elon Musk and baby platypus.

Nobody needs to be reminded that March saw the dark clouds of the global pandemic roll in. Suddenly we all went to Google searching for recipes for hand sanitisers and sourdough bread.

Sourdough. Nom.

Three of the top ten overall biggest trending subjects for the year were about the virus, its symptoms and its effects in Victoria especially as Melbourne got swamped by the second wave.

The subsequent enforced lockdown saw many of us at home for 23 hours a day and thinking about the need for companionship, so "foster a dog" was a popular search.

Some of us asked prosaic questions about how long JobKeeper would last and whether school would be cancelled while others wondered whether the coronavirus itself was, as is usually shown in the media, actually red coloured.

Beyond COVID, we continued to examine the wider world. The death of George Floyd in the USA in May and the rise of the Black Lives Matter movement both there and in Australia (with our shocking history of Aboriginal people dying in custody) was a major focus of our attention. People who read about systemic racism were now able to do their own background research at home.

Of course, that can be a two-edged sword. We all know that information on the internet either has to come from a reputable news source or else needs rigorous fact checking. So, it’s no surprise that one of the top trending Australian public figures was Pete Evans, who spent the year on his unwavering march from benign celebrity chef to conspiracy theorist.

Other top trending public figures included the former AFL player and coach Dani Laidley, who went through her own times of trial, George Pell, who won a High Court appeal after his trial, and Aboriginal boy Quaden Bayles, who settled his defamation case against Miranda Devine.

The number one issue that dominated all others was the US election while Joe Biden was the number one international public figure. Maybe we all have had our fill of Donald Trump who will be disappointed to learn that he came in at number eight, behind Kim Jong-un and even Tiger King’s Joe Exotic.

Meanwhile in a blow to competitive break dancers and perhaps in a sign that the Olympics has run its race, "football will be cancelled" was searched much more than "Olympics will be cancelled".

Finally, perhaps the most 2020 searches of all were "what day is it?", "how do I cut my own hair?" and “where can I buy toilet paper?” This was often immediately followed by “Why is everybody buying toilet paper?” which may be the first recorded instance of a search engine receiving a rhetorical question.

Joe Exotic, the star of the Netflix series Tiger King, was a surprise inclusion in Australia's most-googled names.Credit: Netflix

No matter what we searched for, whether it concerned world events, the pandemic or just popular culture, our internet searches show us to be insatiably inquisitive. Our global connectivity offers us a chance to see other people not as strangers, but as fellow travellers enduring the same difficulties. And that may be the most important answer of all as we all step out hesitatingly into 2021.

And until then, can someone tell me: just what is the best recipe for sourdough?

Duncan Fine is a lawyer and regular columnist