Every year, Google publishes some of the most popular searches of the year and 2022 was no exception. Called “Year in Search”, the 2022 dashboard not only shows the most searched searches in general, but also breaks down those searches into types such as news, people, actors, athletes, sports matches, movies, deaths, recipes, songs and TV shows. The data was released on December 7, 2022. It is possible to filter them so that one can see the results globally or for a specific country, such as the United States or the United Kingdom.
Johnny Depp topped the list for the most googled actors in 2022. Searches for him surged around the time of his controversial and highly covered lawsuit against his ex-wife, Amber Heard, who ranked 3rd.
Will Smith took 2nd place. During the 94th Academy Awards Ceremony, the actor got up from his seat and went onto the stage to slap host Chris Rock, after the comedian made fun Jada Pinkett Smith’s lack of hair. Rock and Pinkett Smith ranked 4th and 5th respectively due to the same event.
British actor Joseph Quinn ranked 6th. He received a lot of praise after playing a new character in the fourth season of Netflix’s Stranger Things.
Known for his roles in American Horror Story and the X-men series, Evan Peters enjoyed an additional fame boost last year thanks his portrayal of cannibalistic serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer in Netflix’s 10-episode mini-series Dahmer – Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story, which quickly became one of the most watched shows on the streaming platform.
After playing Spider Man in what some might call Sony’s least successful movies about the superhero, Andrew Garfield reprised his role in Marvel’s Spider-Man: No Way Home, which united him with Tom Holland, the current actor playing Spider-Man, and Tobey Maguire, the original Spider-Man. Combined with his performance in tick, tick… BOOM!, which brought him an Oscar nomination for best actor in a leading role, the actor’s recognition in 2022 is well deserved.
Ranking 9th, actress Julia Fox’s popularity in 2022 is explained by her brief affair with Kanye West during his controversial separation from Kim Kardashian. After their relationship ended, Fox disclosed one of the main reasons she got together with West was because she wanted to distract him from his ex-wife, hoping he would stop harassing her.
Lastly, the only actor on the list who had multiple search surges throughout the year, rather than just one focused around a single event, Ezra Miller. The actor known mostly for playing The Flash in Justice League has been turning eyes lately due to allegations of “sexual abuse, intimidation, kidnapping, numerous assaults, robbery, endangering the safety of minors, grooming, stocking up on weapons and living in fear of both the FBI and the Ku Klux Klan”, according to Jagran Josh platform.
