- Johnny Depp was Google’s highest trending actor searched in 2022.
- “Encanto” and “Euphoria” were some of the highest trending movies and shows searched this year.
- Past hits like Kate Bush’s “Running Up That Hill (Deal With God)” were among top trending searches.
Talk about range.
Johnny Depp’s defamation lawsuit against ex-wife Amber Heard, the Oscars slap heard around the globe and the magical sounds of of “Encanto” dominated Google’s top trending search entertainment categories of 2022.
Depp was the top trending actor searched this year as the high-profile lawsuit unfolded from April to June. He was also the top trending search of any person overall. Heard was third most-searched trending topic on the celebrity list and overall person list.
Will Smith was the No. 2 top trending actor following his slap of Chris Rock at the Oscars in March after Rock made a joke about Smith’s wife, Jada Pinkett Smith. Rock was fourth on the list and Pinkett Smith was seventh.
Meanwhile, the movie and song list was dominated by Disney’s “Encanto,” despite its November 2021 release date.
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It was the top trending movie search this year, and its hit “We Don’t Talk About Bruno” was the most trending song searched. “Surface Pressure” off the soundtrack came in second and “What Else Can I Do” clinched the 10th spot on the song list.
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People had other things in mind to search for in 2022, including Adam Levine (No. 1 on the artist and band list) and HBO’s “Euphoria” (which topped the TV show list).
Nostalgia was also a big theme of trending search categories; Kate Bush was the seventh on the artist and band list, and her 1985 hit “Running Up That Hill (Deal With God)” made it sixth on the song list after it got a “whole new lease of life” in the fourth season of “Stranger Things.”
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Google’s data was taken from Jan. 1 through Nov. 27. The company defines trending items as “searches that had a high spike in traffic over a sustained period in 2022 as compared to 2021.”
Here top 10 trending search terms of entertainment categories:
Google’s top trending actor searches of 2022
- Johnny Depp
- Will Smith
- Amber Heard
- Chris Rock
- Julia Fox
- Joseph Quinn
- Jada Pinkett Smith
- Ezra Miller
- Miles Teller
- Ashley Judd
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Google’s top trending artist and band searches of 2022
- Adam Levine
- Mary J. Blige
- Lil Tjay
- Kendrick Lamar
- Migos
- Tommy Lee
- Kate Bush
- Ricky Martin
- Young Thug
- Foo Fighters
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Google’s top trending movie searches of 2022
- “Encanto”
- “Thor: Love and Thunder”
- “Top Gun: Maverick”
- “The Batman”
- “Everything Everywhere All at Once”
- “Black Adam”
- “Jurassic World Dominion”
- “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever”
- “Morbius”
- “Turning Red”
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Google’s top trending TV show searches of 2022
- “Euphoria”
- “Stranger Things”
- “The Watcher”
- “Inventing Anna”
- “House of the Dragon”
- “Moon Knight”
- “Yellowstone”
- “The Summer I Turned Pretty”
- “Obi-Wan Kenobi”
- “She-Hulk: Attorney at Law”
Google’s top trending song searches of 2022
- “We Don’t Talk About Bruno” – “Encanto”
- “Surface Pressure” – “Encanto”
- “Jiggle Jiggle” – Duke & Jones and Louis Theroux
- “Unholy” – Sam Smith and Kim Petras
- “As It Was” – Harry Styles
- “Running Up That Hill” – Kate Bush
- “Glimpse of Us” – Joji
- “About Damn Time” – Lizzo
- “Anti-Hero” ≠ Taylor Swift
- “What Else Can I Do” – Encanto
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Follow Jordan Mendoza on Twitter: @jordan_mendoza5.