2020 Google Trends
2020 Google Trends
[A line chart plotting the popularity of various search terms from May 2019 through April 2020: sewing machine (blue line), webcam (red), Andrew Cuomo (yellow), flour (green), and pangolin (purple). The yellow line starts at the bottom of the chart and rises about halfway up at the end of March 2020 before decaying to about 20% by the end of April. The purple line starts at the bottom of the chart and has a small lump in February 2020 and a slightly bigger lump in March 2020 before trending back down. The blue line starts at about 10% up the chart and then spikes up to 50% at the beginning of April before decaying to 40% at the end of April. The red line starts at about 20% up the chart, has a small lump in September 2019, and then jumps up to 40% in March 2020 before trending back down. The green line starts at about 30% up the chart, has a small lump in December 2019, and then spikes up to the top of the chart at the end of March 2020.]
[Caption below comic:] I want to show someone from 2019 this Google Trends graph and watch them try to guess what happened in 2020.

This comic is another comic in a series of comics related to the COVID-19 pandemic .
Randall wants to go back in time to show a 2019 person a Google Trends graph , showing massive spikes in a group of search terms, all around the same time. Some of the terms (flour, webcam, sewing machine) had fairly steady popularity, then rapidly jumped higher.  Others (pangolin, Andrew Cuomo) were barely searched for at all until they suddenly became items of intense interest.  The joke is that, without context, it would be impossible to guess what caused these simultaneous spikes, and the pattern would seem completely random. A person might guess that there was a single event that drove all of these searches, but it would be difficult to speculate what that might be.
All of these trends are presumably due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The title text is a possible "guess" by the 2019 person for these search terms having an increase together: a YouTube craze of exotic animals (which includes pangolins) in homemade aprons (possibly made with the help of sewing machines) hosting baking shows which leads to a response by New York governor Andrew Cuomo. This is not correct. [ citation needed ]
A recent prior comic that touches on the past's possible views on the present situation from limited information was 2280: 2010 and 2020 .  In that case, the relative costs of cryptocurrency and hygiene supplies was considered unremarkable by a 2010 person because (unbeknownst to him) the price of both had skyrocketed.
[A line chart plotting the popularity of various search terms from May 2019 through April 2020: sewing machine (blue line), webcam (red), Andrew Cuomo (yellow), flour (green), and pangolin (purple). The yellow line starts at the bottom of the chart and rises about halfway up at the end of March 2020 before decaying to about 20% by the end of April. The purple line starts at the bottom of the chart and has a small lump in February 2020 and a slightly bigger lump in March 2020 before trending back down. The blue line starts at about 10% up the chart and then spikes up to 50% at the beginning of April before decaying to 40% at the end of April. The red line starts at about 20% up the chart, has a small lump in September 2019, and then jumps up to 40% in March 2020 before trending back down. The green line starts at about 30% up the chart, has a small lump in December 2019, and then spikes up to the top of the chart at the end of March 2020.]
[Caption below comic:] I want to show someone from 2019 this Google Trends graph and watch them try to guess what happened in 2020.
