Google Trends

Google Trends: “Feminism” and “Feminist” in 2017

Gloria Steinem (Viva Media)

“Feminism” was Merriam-Webster’s most-searched term in 2017, and the dictionary reported that the searches for the term rose 70% over searches in 2016.

I’m curious to see how other search engines (namely, Google) saw any trends in searches for the term. Let’s take a look!

Here’s Google searches for “feminism” worldwide over 2017:

Worldwide searches for “Feminism” in 2017 (Google Trends)

That first spike is right around the time of the Women’s March! Several marches were held all over the world, so this makes sense.

Now here are worldwide searches for “feminist” in 2017:

Worldwide searches for “Feminist” in 2017 (Google Trends)

So that’s pretty much the same. Not too surprising.

Let’s look at how these two terms fared in search for the US.

Here’s how “feminism” did:

US searches for “Feminism” in 2017 (Google Trends)

That’s the highest spike around the Women’s March that we’ve seen for the term!

And here’s “feminist:”

US searches for “Feminist” in 2017 (Google Trends)

Another big spike around the Women’s March!

The data clearly supports Merriam-Webster’s findings!

Google Trends: Inclusion Rider

Frances McDormand, Oscars 2018 (The Independent UK)

With Frances McDormand mentioning the inclusion rider clause during her speech while accepting the Best Actress Oscar, I wondered how the concept was rising as a search term. Let’s take a look using Google Trends!

First, here’s how the search term “inclusion” performed over the last 12 months:

Google Trends: Search Term “Inclusion” Over the Past 12 Months (Google Trends)

See that spike? That was for the week of March 4-10, 2018. The Oscars took place on Sunday, March 4. No coincidence there!

Here are the search term’s top five related topics:

Google Trends: “Inclusion” Search Term Related Topics (Google Trends)

Clearly, McDormand was a large driver of traffic in the search term. Another thing to note is that two of the suggested search terms autofilled for “inclusion” are “subset” and “social exclusion.”

Now let’s take a look at how the actual term “inclusion rider” performed:

Google Trends: “Inclusion Rider” Search Term for Past 12 Months (Google Trends)

Another big spike! And in that same week! In this case, correlation equals causation.

Weird thing about the suggested search terms: Matt Damon and Ben Affleck both appear as suggestions, but not Frances McDormand. Hmm. This suggests to me that more people are searching for the term now with regards to Damon and Affleck, but not McDormand.

Here are the related topics for “inclusion rider:”

Google Trends: “Inclusion Rider” Related Topics (Google Trends)

That’s pretty straightforward.

It’s pretty cool to see empirical evidence that this concept is gaining awareness! Though Merriam-Webster could already attest to that.

Google Trends: “Black Panther”

Chadwick Boseman and Lupita Nyong’o in ‘Black Panther’ (Geeks of Doom)

As you may have heard, “Black Panther” comes out in less than a month (!!!). Tickets went on sale a little over a week ago, and Fandango has already reported that the movie’s pre-sales have set a new record for the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU), beating previous record-holder “Captain America: Civil War.”

I was curious to see how Google was affected by this record. Let’s take a look!

First, here’s a general search for “black panther” over the last 12 months:

Google Trends: ‘black panther’ search term over the past 12 months (Google Trends)

See that spike in June? The movie’s teaser trailer dropped on Jan. 9, and received 89M views within its first 24 hours. And you can see the spike at the end within the last few weeks.

How many people searched for “black panther tickets?”

Google Trends: ‘black panther tickets’ from the past 12 months (Google Trends)

Check out that spike!! Everyone wanted in (no surprise, because this movie looks AMAZING!).

Since Fandango reported the new record, let’s see what the trend for searching “black panther fandango” looks like:

Google Trends: ‘black panther fandango’ search term for the past 12 months (Google Trends)

Once again, we see a drastic spike with the last week. One interesting thing is that while the search term “black panther tickets” projected a drop in the search term for the current week (see second graph), the search phrase that includes Fandango does not.

One thing is clear: The excitement surrounding this movie is definitely affecting search, so make sure that SEO is on point!

Google Trends: Time’s Up

Time’s Up logo (Time’s Up)

On Jan. 1, 2018, 300+ powerful women working in Hollywood unleashed Time’s Up, a new initiative to combat sexual harassment in the workplace for all women. Awareness of the initiative debuted via an open letter penned by the Time’s Up founders, and published in The New York Times.

Within the past week-and-a-half, Time’s Up has received much attention, especially with the recent Golden Globes ceremony and the majority of female attendees showing up in black in solidarity for sexual harassment victims.

I was curious to see how much of a digital footprint the initiative has already made regarding search terms. So I looked at Google Trends.

I first used the search terms “times,” within the parameter of the past 30 days (Dec. 9, 2017-Jan. 9, 2018). Here’s the trend:

Google Trends: “timesup” search term, Dec. 9, 2017-Jan. 9, 2018 (Google Trends)

Check out that spike! And it’s all since Jan. 1, 2018!

I was also curious to see which regions were searching for “timesup” the most. And here’s what happened:

Google Trends: “timesup” search term interest by region, Dec. 9, 2017-Jan. 9, 2018 (Google Trends)

That was a surprise to me. I would’ve thought that there would’ve been enough data to show a regional breakout, but I was wrong.

This could be the result of how the search term is typed. So I decided to try another way: “times up.” Here was that trend:

Google Trends: “times up” search term, Dec. 9, 2017-Jan. 9, 2018 (Google Trends)

This is a bit steadier, but it’s also probable that this search term did not directly and solely relate to the new initiative.

I then decided to try the hashtag version: “#timesup.” Here’s what that term’s trend looked like:

Google Trends: “#timesup” search term, Dec. 9, 2017-Jan. 8, 2017 (Google Trends)

This one appears to be more directly related to the new initiative.

As Google Trends confirms, Time’s Up is already having an impact in terms of search. It’ll be interesting to see how the movement grows, and how search terms are subsequently affected.

Google Trends: “Birth Control” vs. “Male Birth Control”

Birth Control Pill Container (The Holy Kale)

With the news that a new form of male contraception could soon be on the horizon, I was curious to see how Google searches were reflecting that.

The parameters I used were looking at the last five years worldwide.

First, here’s the trend for searches for “birth control:”

Google Trends: ‘Birth Control’ searches, worldwide 2012-2017

Not surprisingly, the interest in the topic remains consistently high throughout the timeframe. In terms of regions, the top three regions that searched the term were Jamaica (100%), Trinidad & Tobago (88%), and the United States (82%).

Since birth control is through to be traditionally the woman’s responsibility (*eyeroll*), let’s see what happens when we put “male birth control” searches against “birth control:”

Google Trends: ‘Birth Control’ vs. ‘Male Birth Control’ worldwide, 2012-2017

Wow. I didn’t expect the difference to be that great.

One thing that’s really interesting: Google Trends also pulls up related searches. The third most popular search was for “snopes male control.” Of course, Snopes is a site educated to debunking myths, so it appears that some users were curious to see whether male birth control was even a legit thing or not.

I tried searching “vasalgel” (the male contraceptive gel being tested) against “birth control” and “male birth control,” and the search for the former basically mirrored the trendline for “male birth control.”

As more options for male contraception hit the market, hopefully more users will be searching for male birth control. And also believe male birth control actually exists.

Google Trends: Hillary Clinton vs. Donald Trump

Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump (CNN)

With all the craziness surrounding this election, I’ve gotten more and more curious about how the Google Trends numbers stack up for both Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump. Let’s take a look!

First, here’s a Google Trends graph of searches for the presidential candidates within the past week (Oct. 24-Oct. 31):

National search interest in the candidates, past week (Google Trends)

Here’s the long-term trend of Google users searching “hillary clinton” over the past five years:

Search term ‘hillary clinton’ interest over time (Google Trends)

Check out those spikes!! That first large spike is from Jul. 24-30, 2016. The second spike is Sept. 11-17, 2016.

And here’s the same for “donald trump:”

Search term ‘donald trump’ interest over time (Google Trends)

Here’s how searches for the two candidates look over time (fittingly, Clinton’s in blue, Trump’s in red):

Search terms ‘hillary clinton’ and ‘donald trump’ over time (Google Trends)

Here’s “hillary clinton” and “donald trump” searched over the past 12 months only in the U.S.:

Search terms ‘hillary clinton’ and ‘donald trump’ over the past 12 months in the U.S. (Google Trends)

To be honest, I really don’t know how to parse this data. It seems that people who are searching for Trump…Google him more often? Needless to say, we won’t get any clear answers here.

Google Trends: How Many People Are Searching for a Female Viagra?

Little pink pill (Stuff NZ)

Hot on the heels of the news that a female Viagra is edging closer to public consumption, I wanted to see how often U.S. Internet users (which would be basically everyone) were searching for information related to female Viagra. I used “2004-present” as my timeframe.

First, here’s how often “female viagra” (red line) against “viagra” (blue line):

Google Trends: ‘Female Viagra’ vs. ‘Viagra,’ U.S. 2004-Present

As you can see, there’s a lot less searching for the former term versus the latter.

Now, let’s look at “female Viagra” on its own:

Google Trends: ‘Female Viagra,’ U.S. 2004-Present

It’s hard to ignore that huge spike at the end of the timeframe. That occurred this month. It’s no coincidence: Sprout Pharmaceuticals announced that their female desire pill Flibanserin/ADDYI was recommended for Food & Drug Administration (FDA) approval on Jun. 5th.

Flibanserin/ADDYI will treat women with low libidos, known medically as hypoactive sexual desire disorder (HSDD). I wanted to see how common Google searches for low sex drives appeared.

First, I searched “low sex drive in women,” which was the first specific option Google autofilled for me:

Google Trends: ‘Low Sex Drive in Women,’ U.S. 2004-Present

Interesting. It appears that the term hit its peak (ha) around a spike in 2011, and then crested in 2013. It’s dipped since then, but is starting to come back up. (Also, I’d love to know what happened in 2007.)

But let’s put this in context. Here’s “low sex drive in women” (blue line) versus “low sex drive” (red line):

Google Trends: ‘Low Sex Drive in Women’ vs. ‘Low Sex Drive,’ U.S. 2004-Present

It’s interesting that the female-specific searches don’t make up that much of the overall searches.

Now let’s find out how many men are searching for information on low desire. Here’s “low sex drive in women” (blue line) versus “low sex drive in men” (red line):

Google Trends: ‘Low Sex Drive in Women’ vs. ‘Low Sex Drive in Men,’ U.S. 2004-Present

OK, now we can see that low libidos in women are an issue, insofar as they’re being Googled.

So a lot of people (we could probably reasonably assume women) are searching for information on low sex drives in women. But how many are searching for a solution? Maybe a cure, call it “female viagra” (red line)?

Google Trends: ‘Low Sex Drive in Women’ vs. ‘Female Viagra,’ U.S. 2004-Present

Holy shit, this is amazing. Sure, users are searching for (presumably) information on women having low sex drives, but they’re searching a lot more for a solution. At no point in this graph are there more searches for “low sex drive in women” than there are for “female viagra.” Also, note how the “female viagra” searches spike at the end, halfway through 2015. As noted above, that’s when Sprout announced their “little pink pill.”

Conclusion:

The evidence here points to the fact that people are actively searching for solutions to cure women’s low sex drives. This certainly warrants a female Viagra pill to be brought to market, but why the hell wasn’t this developed sooner?!

Google Trends: Was 2014 Really the Year of Eating Booty?

Nicki Minaj ‘Anaconda’ still (NY Daily News)

Last year, we heard all about how 2014 was the Year of Eating Booty (as termed by “Gawker”). Now we can’t go around and confirm this by asking randoms on the street if they got into anal play (come on, you expect everyone to tell the truth?), but we can check out Google Trends to see if anal terms were searched for more often.

I searched popular terms for the (somewhat-) transgressive sex act, and used a timeframe of January 2013-January 2015. I wanted to see how the entirety of 2014 compared to the year before for anal play-related search terms.

First, let’s start with the proper term for eating out your partner’s asshole:

Analingus:

Google Trends: ‘Analingus’ Search Term

There’s a bit of an increase, with a slightly steeper incline coming (heh) in the second half of last year.

Eating Booty:

Google Trends: ‘Eating Booty’ Search Term

Tyrone Palmer’s “Gawker” piece was published on Sept. 12. Those first initial rapid spikes occur in August, so we can’t argue that the “Gawker” piece had anything to do with that. It could’ve been responsible for the spikes throughout the rest of 2014 (not to mention that one huge spike at the end), but it’s pretty inconclusive.

Rimming:

Google Trends: ‘Rimming’ Search Term

This one stays pretty flat throughout. (I have to say, I never heard this term used much last year. It tended towards more colorful expressions for the act.)

Salad Tossing:

Google Trends: ‘Tossing Salad’ Search Term

Like “analingus” and “eating booty,” this one started to get more active during the second half of 2014. My guess here is that it’s due to the popularity of Nicki Minaj’s single “Anaconda,” which was released on August 4th. (In it, she tells listeners that “this dude named Michael…tossed my salad like his name Romaine.”)

Conclusion:

2014 definitely showed an increase in Google search terms related to eating out one’s asshole, though these mainly took place during the second half of the year. I’d have to say that yes, 2014 was the year of eating booty, due to both “Gawker” and Nicki Minaj.

Google Trends: “Feminism” and “Feminist” (and Beyoncé)

‘***Flawless’ Still, 2013 (Huffington Post)

On Dec. 13, 2013, Beyoncé’s self-titled studio album unexpectedly dropped, leading to rave critical reviews (and setting an iTunes record in the process). It quickly became apparent that Beyoncé was launching new sexual and feminist identities (particularly in “***Flawless”), and the world eagerly embraced her and feminism.

We have the anecdotal and cultural evidence. But do Google searches show this?

Leading up to its first anniversary, we look at how interest in feminism has changed over the past year, and how Beyoncé might have impacted that. All trends are for the United States.

First, some long-run patterns:

Google Trends: ‘Feminism’ and ‘Feminist,’ 2004-Present

The above shows search term “feminism” (blue line) and “feminist” (red line) tracking from January 2004 to present. Throughout the decade, both terms parallel each other in terms of popularity, and hit the same peaks and lows: Each term’s most popular month occurred in April 2004, and the least popular month was August 2010.

It’s interesting to see how each term started out strong and then dipped down, and is now climbing back up.

Let’s look at how each term performed within the last 12 months (“Feminism” is the blue line, and “feminist” is the red line):

Google Trends: ‘Feminism’ and ‘Feminist,’ Last 12 Months (Dec. 2013-Dec. 2014)

Searches for each term grew the week from Dec. 22-28, 2013. There are some spikes, the first of which occurs the week of Aug. 24-30, 2014. Beyoncé performed a medley of songs from her self-titled album at the MTV Video Music Awards (VMAs), which aired on Aug. 25. More notably, she performed “***Flawless” in front of a giant lit marquee claiming her as a “FEMINIST.”

The last baby spike in traffic for the terms occurred during Nov. 16-22, 2014, which was the week before Beyoncé released the Platinum Edition.

But how many people were searching for “feminism” and “feminist” in conjunction with Beyoncé? Let’s take a look:

Google Trends: ‘Beyoncé Feminism’ and ‘Beyoncé Feminist,’ Last 12 Months (Dec. 2013-Dec. 2014)

This trend shows searches for “beyoncé feminism” (blue line) and “beyoncé feminist” (red line) over the past 12 months. She released her album on Dec. 13, which accounts for the notable spike occurred the week of Dec. 15-21, 2013. After that, both terms go relatively quiet during spring 2014 (and completely dormant during summer 2014), before “beyoncé feminist” makes an astronomical comeback the week of her VMAs performance.

Clearly, Beyoncé and her self-titled blockbuster album had an effect on basic terms “feminism” and “feminist.” We’ll have to see if this is a one-time thing, or will endure over time.

Google Trends: “Halloween Costumes” vs. “Sexy Halloween Costumes”

Sexy Elsa ‘Frozen’ Costume

In celebration of Halloween being my favorite holiday, I’ll be crunching some data about it in the upcoming days. Enjoy!

With Halloween coming up on Friday (!!!), I was curious about how the recent Google searches reflected the all-important costume search. Google Trends to the rescue!

I searched “Halloween costumes” (blue line) against “sexy Halloween costumes” (red line) for the U.S. during the past 30 days (Sept. 27-Oct. 27, 2014), with the following results:

Google Trends: ‘Halloween Costumes’ vs. ‘Sexy Halloween Costumes’

Unsurprisingly, the search for sexy Halloween costumes, while small, still made an impression. But I would’ve predicted it would’ve been a fair bit larger.

Now, the fun part! Let’s look at each of these searches by subregion (in this case, state), metro and city.

“Halloween Costumes” by Subregion:

‘Halloween Costumes’ by Subregion

States with larger populations make a strong showing here: Wyoming, West Virginia, North Dakota, Montana and South Dakota descend from 100% to 86%. Notable conservative state Utah appears at 78%.

“Halloween Costumes” by Metro:

‘Halloween Costumes’ by Metro

Pennsylvania areas Wilkes Barre-Scranton (100%) and Pittsburgh (92%) take the top two spots. Salt Lake City reappears with 87%. New York takes up two consecutive entries with Albany-Schenectady-Troy with 85%, and Buffalo with 83%.

“Halloween Costumes” by City:

‘Halloween Costumes’ by City

Here we have something I haven’t seen before: a tie! Westland, Michigan and Omaha, Nebraska both sit at the top with 100%.

Other points of interest: Major US cities make the list further down. Los Angeles clocks in at #8 with 82%, and Washington, D.C. appears next with 81%. Also the first non-Lower 48 city appeared at #10: Honolulu with 81%.

“Sexy Halloween Costumes” by Subregion:

‘Sexy Halloween Costumes’ by Subregion

Third most-populous state New York sets the pace at 100%. (Most-populated state California enters the race halfway down the list at #5 with 88%.) Michigan and Florida tie with 92%, with Pennsylvania hot on their heels at 91%. Second-most populated state Texas clocks in at #9 with 79%.

“Sexy Halloween Costumes” by Metro:

‘Sexy Halloween Costumes’ by Metro

I’ve never seen this before: only one entry. It’s New York, the most-populated metro area. Clearly, everyone in the greater New York City area is searching for sexy Halloween costumes…right?

“Sexy Halloween Costumes” by City:

‘Sexy Halloween Costumes’ by City

Interesting that the greater New York metro area is searching for sexy Halloween costumes more than the city’s residents themselves. But everyone in Los Angeles, the city proper, is Googling sexy costumes. Also of note is that all of these are very large cities (compared with the basic “Halloween costumes” search, which had smaller cities top the list).

Conclusions:

I didn’t expect this, but the “Halloween costumes” vs. “sexy Halloween costumes” searches tend to break down along urban/rural-ish lines. Those searching for “Halloween costumes” have tended to be from less-populated areas, whereas those Googling “sexy Halloween costumes” seem to be coming from more urban areas and making larger impacts.

Sex & Stats: Where Numbers Come to Bang

Statistics. Economics. Sex.