Google released its annual “Year in Search” stats, and in the United States in 2025, it was dominated by tragedies in the news and political gridlock . . . but also Gen Z pop culture, slang, and some really weird food.
Here’s a rundown of the top searches by category in the U.S. . . .
1. The top 10 searches we googled, in order, were: Charlie Kirk . . . KPop Demon Hunters . . . Labubu toys . . . iPhone 17 . . . “One Big Beautiful Bill Act” . . . Zohran Mamdani . . . DeepSeek . . . the government shutdown . . . FIFA Club World Cup . . . and tariffs.
2. The top news stories we googled included a few of those, plus: No Kings protests . . . Los Angeles fires . . . the new Pope . . . the “Epstein Files” . . . the U.S. Presidential Inauguration . . . and Hurricane Melissa.
3. The top “trends” we were trying to follow were almost ENTIRELY artificial intelligence driven: “A.I. Action Figure” . . . “A.I. Barbie” . . . “Holy Airball” . . . “A.I. Ghostface” . . . “A.I. Polaroid” . . . “Chicken Jockey” . . . “Bacon Avocado” . . . “Anxiety Dance” . . . “Unfortunately, I Do Love” . . . and “Ghibli”.
4. The top “why do kids say” searches are: “67” . . . “Sigma” . . . “41” . . . “Skibidi” . . . “Ohio” . . . “Rizz” . . . “Good boy” . . . “Skibidi toilet” . . . “Aura” . . . and “Chat”.
5. The “viral dishes” we’re searching are: “Hot honey cottage cheese sweet potato beef bowls” . . . dumpling bake . . . cabbage boil . . . iceberg lettuce salad . . . carrot salad . . . protein muffins . . . Turkish pasta . . . onion ring chips . . . crockpot turkey breast . . . and Ditalini pasta.
6. And the top travel itineraries we’re asking Google about are: Boston . . . Seattle . . . Tokyo . . . New York . . . Prague . . . London . . . San Diego . . . Acadia National Park . . . Edinburgh . . . and Miami.