The year 2021 saw many people Googling topics related to the COVID-19 pandemic, but they apparently were even more interested in sports and meme stocks.

Google on Wednesday released its top search trends for 2021. The top eight searches globally were all related to sports — five of them to cricket. In fact, the world’s No. 1 search was about Australia vs. India in men’s cricket.

Needless to say, the cricket trend didn’t hold true in the United States. Here, basketball was king, with “NBA” being the most searched term.

Meanwhile, the stocks of a couple of otherwise struggling companies — GameStop and AMC movie theaters — were popular search terms in the U.S. That’s because social media users banded together to craft a short squeeze of the companies’ stocks, which sent their prices soaring. 

GameStop helped create the idea of "meme stocks" in January. (AP Photo, File)

It was an unusual – and, to many who are not intimately familiar with trading, a perplexing – story, which makes it perfectly logical that so many took to Google to not only follow the developments but try to better understand how it all happened. “AMC Stock” was the second most searched news story and seventh most searched term overall in the U.S., while “GME,” GameStop’s trading abbreviation, was the fifth-most Googled news story. 

The pandemic remained a popular search trend, although it didn’t top any lists. 

“COVID” was the world’s No. 9 Googled news story. Searches for “COVID vaccine” surpassed interest in “COVID testing” this year. Americans’ top search involving the term “near me” was about the vaccine, and their No. 3 “how to help” search was about those impacted by India’s virus surge, which peaked in May.

Americans were also highly interested in the stimulus checks the federal government sent out to help speed along the economic recovery from the pandemic. “How to be eligible for stimulus check” was the top “how to be” term searched, and “stimulus check” was the sixth-most Googled news story.

Google said in a blog post that searches for “how to heal” reached an all-time high and that other terms expressing hope — including “how to make a come back” — were popular. However, the search giant also said “doomscrolling” — the practice of surfing through bad news — was searched more than ever globally.

Here are some other revelations from this year:

• “Afghanistan” was the top news search around the world, while “Mega Millions” ranked No. 1 in the U.S. 

• The most searched people in the United States included Kyle Rittenhouse (acquitted last month for fatally shooting two men and wounding another), Tiger Woods (involved a serious car crash), Alec Baldwin (unintentionally fired a loaded gun on a movie set that killed the cinematographer and wounded the director), Travis Scott (performed at a concert where 10 people were crushed to death) and Simone Biles (pulled out of several Olympic events due a mental block that prevented her from performing certain gymnastics maneuvers). 

• “Squid Game” was Googled more than any other TV show in the U.S., while “Black Widow” was the most searched movie. In March, Oprah Winfrey’s interview with Meghan Markle and Prince Harry became the most searched interview in Google Trends history. And Olivia Rodrigo’s “drivers license” topped all songs in searches this year.

• And thanks to Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders' Inauguration Day outfit, which became a now-infamous meme, “mittens” reached an an all-time high in searches worldwide in January, and “Bernie Sanders’ mittens” was the No. 1 meme search.

  

  Sen. Bernie Sanders (AP Photo)