Cheaters never win and winners never cheat, as the saying goes, but that didn’t stop lots of people from leaning on Google just to solve Wordle puzzles in 2022.
In fact, so many did so that “Wordle” was Google’s top trending searched word of the year, according to the global search engine giant.
And with everything going on in the world, that’s saying something.
According to Google’s annual report of everything people looked up in the previous year, current events were also a popular search topic, with the Russian invasion of Ukraine topping trending searches in the “News” category; Queen Elizabeth‘s passing ranked second, with election results in third, topping Powerball results in fourth place — no surprise, considering 2022’s record jackpots.
Johnny Depp was the top trending searched person in 2022, according to Google. Will Smith took second place, ahead of Amber Heard;Smith searches were apparently related to his Oscars night smackdown of Chris Rock (#5), and Heard searches to her headline-grabbing defamation case with ex-husband Depp.
The top first-, second- and third-place trending searches were identical in the “Celebrity” search category; Chris Rock was fourth, followed by Jada Pinkett Smith, who Rock used as an Oscars night punchline, making him nearly a literal punchline.