Google has published its annual overview of key search trends and themes of the year, which provides a somewhat dizzying reminder of all the things that have happened in 2021 - which really feels like it’s only lasted for a few months.

Google’s 2021 Search Trends mini-site includes data on all the key topics of interest, including overall searches and news events.

As you can see here, via the mini-site, you can sort the listings by region, providing more specific insight into what’s been happening in your corner of the world.

The listings also provide perspective, based on search volume at least, on the most popular songs, sports teams and TV shows, along with other categories.

Oh wow, ‘Squid Game’, what a surprise.

Google’s also provided a scrollable, month-by-month overview of the most searched terms, which is a more specific way to understand what went down and when.

That lengthy Facebook outage in October certainly sparked a lot of attention – I think I received more PR pitches about ‘what the Facebook outage means for business’ than any other topic in history, and all of them basically came down to ‘don’t put all your eggs in one basket’.

Google’s also shared an overview of key pop culture trends and moments, further adding to the insight here.

There are some key notes, and it’s worth taking a look at the trends and data to get some perspective on what’s trending, while also refreshing your own brain as to what’s happened over the past 12 months – which, again, doesn’t feel like it’s been that long.

A pandemic apparently does that, compressing time in a way that feels unnatural by making so many days the same. Or maybe it’s a mental response, with your brain keen to move forward to whatever’s next, which accelerates your perception of time.

Either way, it has been a year, and hopefully we’re now getting closer to moving on to the next stage of post-pandemic life.

You can check out the Google 'Year in Search' mini-site here.