What did South Africans Google in 2022? Well on December 7, Google released its Year in Search results. This captures all of the information and questions South Africans and people around the world sought out in 2022 from the search engine.
Globally
Globally people mostly searched for words – well actually Wordle. The popular word game which took the world by storm at the beginning of the year was the most searched word of the year.
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In the news, things like Ukraine, the passing of Queen Elizabeth and monkeypox dominated.
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On the music side of things, Indonesian pop song Tak Ingin Usai by Keisya Levronka and the Coke Studio song Pasoori by Ali Sethi and Shae Gill dominated. Sports-wise, the World Cup dominated but the one that is currently being played. It was the Cricket World Cup with India versus England and India versus South Africa topping the searches.
Check out the full Global Year in Searches here.
In South Africa
As for South Africa, the top trending search was the status check for the Special Relief Distress Grant. This was the grant the government introduced during the pandemic and lockdown and has extended it until 2023. How to apply for the grant also trended in the “how to” searches along with how to check matric results and “how to check sassa status”. Wordle, climate change, monkeypox and Ukraine made up the other trending searches.
Rihanna’s comeback song for Wakanda Forever: Black Panther, Lift Me Up, dominated the lyric searches.
The death of Ricky Rik and Queen Elizabeth dominated the searches of losses for the year. South Africans also turned to Google to find out more following the deaths of musicians Dj Sumbody, Takeoff and Dj Dimplez.
In 2022, when South Africans typed in “what is?” – the most popular search was “what is vabbing?”. This was a controversial TikTok trend that took over the internet. Global and climate change dominated the searches.
As for trending movies and television shows, the local show Big Brother Mzansi led the searches with Netflix shows, Wednesday and Stranger Things coming in second and third.
