Anatomy of a "Current Thing": Search Volume for Recent Trending Topics

A visual representation of the insanity over the past two years

For the past few years, the media has been whipping the masses into a frenzy about a constantly-changing set of topics. Some of them are recurring events (mass shootings), while others are one-off (Roe vs. Wade).

When you take a look at the search volume for different trending topics it’s easy to see how quickly people both gain and lose interest in a Current Thing.

In this article I’ll use Ahrefs to look up the search volume of different keywords relating to past Current Things so you can see the insanity for yourself.

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Russia invades Ukraine

Ukraine quickly became the Current Thing after Russia escalated the war in February 2022.

Search volume for “ukraine” spiked from 324k to 32.7 million from January to February.

Two months later it was down to 7 million, and by June it was down to 2.8 million.

Andrew Tate

The search volume for “andrew tate” was only in the four digits throughout 2021.

In January 2022 his search volume spiked to 54k. In May 2022 it was at 618k, and then by July his search volume jumped up to 4.1 million just before he was cancelled in August.

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Elon Musk announces that he’s going to buy Twitter

When Elon Musk announced that he was going to buy Twitter in April 2022, he quickly became the most-discussed topic in the world.

The search volume for “elon musk” quickly shot up to 9.2 million. By June 2022, the world had moved on and the search volume for his name dropped to 2.8 million.

Lockdowns

When the Covid scamdemic lockdowns began in March 2020, the search volume for the term “lockdown” shot up to 763k.

By August of that year search volume dropped to 48k.

Mass shootings

Every time a mass shooting happens, it becomes the only thing that people care about for a day or two before people move on to a new Current Thing.

In the above image you can see the search volume spikes that correspond to the most-hyped shootings.

Supreme Court overturns Roe vs. Wade

The Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in June 2022.

The search volume for “abortion” jumped from 164k in April to 1.1 million in June. One month later the interest in the topic declined dramatically to 440k searches.

Vaccine mandate

When the scamdemic started in March 2020, only 12k people searched for “vaccine mandate”.

For the five months from September 2021 through January 2022 the search volume was in the high hundreds of thousands per month (during the “winter of death and destruction”), with a high of 935k in November. From January to February 2022 it dropped from 780k to 187k.

Only 28k people searched for the term in June 2022.

Presidential elections

The level to which Americans are becoming addicted to politics is very visible when you look at the search volume for the term “election” during different presidential election years.

Only 1.8 million people searched for “election” during November 2016. In November 2020 the search volume was 10.1 million.

Conclusion

If you ever find yourself getting worked up about an event in the news, you need to realize that it’s not worth it. The world moves on quickly. Life is a lot better when you take control of your own mind and stop letting your political addiction take over your life.

Focus on growing your business and stop letting the whims of the mob dictate your emotions. There will be more Current Things in the future and the best thing you can do is be prepared to ignore them.

And if you ever end up as the topic of a Current Thing, all you need to do is weather the storm for a month or two and then everyone will forget that they ever cared to begin with.