Lewiston, Maine was a Top 10 Search Term On All of Google for 2023

Just about everyone is checking out all the year-end wrap ups.

I've seen so many Facebook posts about people's year- end Spotify stuff, that I feel like I don't even need to listen to music with them. I already know way too much about everyone's listening habits. And honestly, I'm ashamed of mine. On paper, it looks awful. But I use Spotify to practice drums. Songs that are fun to listen to, and songs that are fun to play along to, are often two different things.

No stranger to the year-end wraps, is Google. They offer up the top searched memes, sports events, recipes... you name it. And of course, they put out a list of the top searched terms overall. It's a list of whatever people put in the search bar the most for the whole year. Normally, we'd be super stoked to see Maine on this list. But not this year.

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We made it because of the tragedy in Lewiston.

Sadly, pretty much all the top searched items on all of Google were related to disasters of some kind. The most searched terms were about the war in Israel and Gaza, the titanic sub, plus wildfires and hurricanes. There didn't seem to be any feel-good stories that people were trying to latch onto.

But for all of 2023, "the Maine shooting" was the #7 most searched terms on all of Google. In almost any other circumstance, Lewiston or any part of Maine would love to have such an honor. But looking at the overall top ten, it doesn't seem there's ever anything to be proud of if you're in the best-of Google searches.

Maine is still reeling from the senselessness of what happened in Lewiston. It's not really a way we'd ever want to honor the victims, but it's comforting to know that people around the world cared enough to check in on us. It's hardly a silver lining, but it's nice to know when someone has your back.

It would be much nicer to be on this kind of list next year...