Google's "Year in Search" 2022 Has Been Released: Here are the Top Ten Most Ridiculous Things Americans Searched For

The fun, word-based guessing game Wordle came in as the number one ranked search we did in 2022. Ranking before anything that had to do with politics or natural disasters, because, let's face it, we LOVE our games!

While Chris Rock was hosting the Academy Awards in 2022, he made a joke that included a reference to Will Smith's wife, Jada Pinkett Smith. Will Smith abruptly walked on stage toward an unexpecting Chris Rock and delivered a slap across the face for the world to see. This was one of the most popular searches of 2022 and, even with all of his popularity, Will Smith was forced to resign from the Academy and is banned from the Academy Awards for the next ten years. 

In 2022, Amber Heard and Johnny Depp went through an intense and emotional trial where Depp eventually won, claiming Heard was guilty of defamation. This trial was one of the most commonly searched trends of 2022 and turned into hilarious memes and sharable moments across the Internet. 

Google's Year in Review listed the fourth and fifth most-popular searches as the Mega Millions and Powerball Jackpots. This isn't surprising since they had been running without a winner for so long that each had grown to an incredible amount. When the Powerball jackpot was finally won, the $2.04 billion was split between three couples. Additionally, the 2022 Mega Millions jackpot of $426 million was won by a single purchaser. With the importance Americans place upon wealth, it isn't surprising that the chances of winning millions or billions of dollars were so popular amongst Google searches. 

We couldn't get enough of fun, thinking games in 2022, so the sixth most popular search on Google was for Nerdle. This is a twist upon the classic word game, Wordle, which was the most popular search trend of 2022. Nerdle, however, is for those fans of Mental Abuse to Humans (MATH for short). Rather than piecing together letters to find a single word, Nerdle requires computation and mathing to solve the puzzle and became incredibly popular last year. 

One of the largest searches in the US during 2022 was the fact that a massive shortage of Siracha occurred. Those with tastebuds that constantly crave the sweet and spicy heat of Siracha found themselves in bewilderment wondering where to find their next bottle of the incredible condiment from Huy Fong, Siracha's manufacturer. This shortage happened because of weather conditions that left the necessary chili peppers for Siracha unusable. While other sauces tried to benefit from the lack of Siracha on the shelves, it didn't seem to help since the Siracha remained in the top ten Google searches last year.

Bringing up the rear at the eighth most popular search trend of 2022 is Anna Sorokin Delvey. Posing as a wealthy heiress and lying/scamming her way into the upper echelon of New York's high society, Anna Sorokin Delvey was nothing more than a con artist. Whether you were obsessed with her court case or found yourself engrossed in the Netflix docuseries that dramatized her gutsy abilities to work her way into the best hotel rooms and parties in the world, Anna Sorokin Delvey grasped a lot of the country's attention and, obviously, a lot of Google's search traffic. 

While his ex-wife, Amber Heard, beat him out for the third most popular Google search in 2022, Johnny Depp came in at number nine with millions of searches about his net worth after the defamation trial. Even with the trial and the defamation Heard may have caused him, Depp was still sitting pretty with an approximate net worth of $150 million in 2022. 

This one is the least ridiculous on our list, but we couldn't skip memoralizing Betty White who passed away in 2022. Betty White was Googled millions of times during 2022 after she passed away at the age of 99. She was remembered for an incredible career of acting in iconic shows like The “Golden Girls” and the “Mary Tyler Moore Show” along with multitudes of movies.