What Google Trends Tells Us About "Star Wars: The Force Awakens"

by Richard Rowell, Article Writer for Hire

Google Trends often has features that highlight popular topics and related searches about them. Besides all the political stuff that we often want to forget about (you can write about those if you want), trending pop culture stuff is always a lot of fun to watch trending. What's more pop culture than Star Wars? I love Star Wars. You know you love Star Wars. Even if you don't, it's still fun to see what the world is asking about the hottest movie in the history of ever.

So, Google, give us some insights!

According to Google, the top searched Star Wars characters are Darth Vader, Princess Leia, Chewbacca, Luke Skywalker, and R2-D2. These names are completely expected, as is the overwhelming popularity of Darth Vader. Nothing unexpected here.

Yeah, Halloween is technically over but you know that plenty of people are still going to dress up to go see "The Force Awakens!" None of these costume choices are surprising, either.

What order should I watch "Star Wars?" Watch A New Hope, Empire Strikes Back, and Return of the Jedi. Pretend the other three don't exist. You don't have to see the prequels to get "The Force Awakens" anyway. As for "who is Kylo Ren" and "Who is Finn," I have no idea. I don't care much for film spoilers. I like to go in fresh as possible. Good questions, though, Google search community!

Wow, that World of Warcraft movie is trying to steal Star Wars' thunder! I'm probably not running out to see the WoW movie myself, but the demographic makes sense. As for the Japanese Star Wars trailer, Japanese is awesome.

Finally some really interesting data! That's right, Hungary has the highest search interest of any country in the world! Australia is a close second. I didn't know Hungarians were such huge Star Wars fans. Apparently, they are. They even have special awesome posters!

And the top US Metro searching for Star Wars is... Salt Lake City, Utah? OK, Disney, you know where to spend your marketing dollars when it comes to upcoming Star Wars films!

All quipping aside, how useful are these sorts of features when it comes to trending topics? Honestly, I find the country and metro stuff the most interesting. This is very public information, so it's not like you have to be some crazy data miner to find this stuff out. It is cool to see what the interest is from place to place, though.

The trending searches are useful for knowing what topics to write about most if you're covering "The Force Awakens" hype. And it's good to know what the top characters and costumes are, as these are going to bring you the most traffic if you discuss these particular topics.

So I think these Google Trends features are cool, especially if you want to play some Twitter Trivia, or whatever it is these kids are playing these days.