Cryptocurrencies, meme stocks atop Google's year in search in 2021

Meme stocks and cryptocurrencies rivalled major sport and the fallout from the Taliban’s rise to power as the biggest search and news trends for Google in 2021.

When searching for news, Google users were interested in Afghanistan, according to the latest annual trending report of Alphabet’s search giant. The rest of the top places were dominated by Reddit stock favourites such as GameStop and AMC Entertainment Holdings, together with cryptocoins Ethereum and Dogecoin.

The three search terms that had the biggest spikes this year compared to 2020 were all for Indian cricket, including the country’s series against Australia and England, followed by the limited overs IPL tournament.

In entertainment, Walt Disney’s Marvel franchise dominated the top five searched movies, with Eternals, Black Widow and Shang-Chi, alongside War­ner Bros Entertain­ment’s Dune and Netflix’s Red Notice. Korean hit Squid Game topped television searches for Netflix, followed by the streaming giant’s Bridgerton.