SAN FRANCISCO — Matt Lauer. Bitcoin. DACA. Monkey selfies. Jeremy Lin’s hair. Do-it-yourself eclipse glasses. Tom Petty’s death. National anthem protests in the NFL. And “Cash Me Outside.”

These were some of the people, topics and memes that trended to the top of Google searches in 2017. The search terms reflected the United States in upheaval over sexual misconduct allegations against powerful men, reeling from the tumultuous presidency of Donald Trump (What is “covfefe,” by the way?), and people around the world searching for information about the latest iPhone and how to make slime.

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Three of the top 10 TV shows in the U.S. debuted on Netflix, the same as last year.

April the Giraffe made news by giving birth live on YouTube.

And the world grooved to Luis Fonsi singing “Despacito.”

Here are some of the terms Google says had the highest sustained spike in traffic compared to 2016, filtered for spam, repeat queries and adult keywords. The full list is here .



UNITED STATES

Searches

1. Hurricane Irma

2. Matt Lauer

3. Tom Petty

4. Super Bowl

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5. Las Vegas Shooting

6. Mayweather vs. McGregor Fight

7. Solar Eclipse

8. Hurricane Harvey

9. Aaron Hernandez

10. Fidget Spinner

People

1. Matt Lauer

2. Meghan Markle

3. Harvey Weinstein

4. Michael Flynn

5. Kevin Spacey

6. Bill O’Reilly

7. Melania Trump

8. Kathy Griffin

9. Milo Yiannopoulos

10. Gal Gadot

Losses

1. Tom Petty

2. Aaron Hernandez

3. Chris Cornell

4. Bill Paxton

5. Hugh Hefner

6. Chester Bennington

7. Charlie Murphy

8. Lil Peep

9. Jim Nabors

10. David Cassidy

How to

1. How to make slime

2. How to make solar eclipse glasses

3. How to watch the solar eclipse

4. How to watch Mayweather vs. McGregor

5. How to buy Bitcoin

6. How to freeze your credit

7. How to solve a Rubix Cube

8. How to make a fidget spinner

9. How to cook a turkey in the oven

10. How to screen record

What is

1. What is DACA?

2. What is Bitcoin?

3. What is a solar eclipse?

4. What is antifa?

5. What is net neutrality?

6. What is covfefe?

7. What is the antikythera mechanism?

8. What is a fidget spinner?

9. What is the Paris Climate Agreement?

10. What is a hurricane?

GLOBAL LISTS

Searches

1. Hurricane Irma

2. iPhone 8

3. iPhone X

4. Matt Lauer

5. Meghan Markle

6. 13 Reasons Why

7. Tom Petty

8. Fidget Spinner

9. Chester Bennington

10. India National Cricket Team

Songs/Lyrics

1. Despacito

2. Shape of You

3. Perfect

4. Havana

5. Look What You Made Me Do

6. HUMBLE.

7. Versace on the Floor

8. Closer

9. Bad and Boujee

10. Rockstar

Memes

1. Cash Me Outside

2. United Airlines

3. Elf on the Shelf

4. What in Tarnation

5. Spongebob Mocking

6. Romper

7. IT

8. Joe Biden

9. Game of Thrones

10. Hot dog

Elections

1. French election

2. German federal election

3. UK election

4. Uttar Pradesh election

5. Georgia special election

6. Montana special election

7. British Columbia election

8. BMC election

9. Sicilian regional election

10. Dutch election

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