Google has released its annual list of the year’s most popular search terms, revealing all the ways in which the world had no idea what was going on in 2016. Unsurprisingly, we really wanted to know about Donald Trump, Pokémon Go, the new iPhone, and the host of beloved pop culture legends who sadly passed away this year. David Bowie and Prince were actually searched for slightly more than Trump and Hillary Clinton — though not as frequently as the $1.56 billion dollar Powerball. News-wise, we’re reminded that El Chapo’s interview with Sean Penn happened almost a full 12 months ago, and that the horrors taking place in Aleppo didn’t attract our attention until far too late (it’s unclear if these results factor in the searches for “a lepo,” one of the most queried terms following the second U.S. presidential debate.
Perhaps given the abundance of terrible things that happened in 2016, it’s not surprising that we all wanted to live in a different era — and according to the most-Googled fashion searches, we didn’t really care which one. The 7th, 8th, and 9th most popular queries were “What is boho?” “What did people wear in the ’90s?” and “How to dress like a hippie?” Also very popular was “How to wear booties with skinny jeans?” while more Instagram-era searches included “How to become a fitness model?” — perhaps thanks to Gigi Hadid for Reebok, Cara Delevingne for Puma, or Beyoncé’s new activewear line Ivy Park.
The jury’s still out on whether Bey swayed the results of 2016’s most popular fashion designers — led by Rachel Roy, who for some reason became very popular around the time Lemonade dropped earlier this year. Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen scored the #2 spot, while Rachael Ray unfortunately does not appear on the same list. Take a look through Google’s Year in Search here.
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Text Hannah Ongley