As Coronavirus Panic Set in, Here’s What Ranker Readers Searched for

Internet users went from placid to panicked as the pandemic got more serious — and you could tell from what they were reading on Ranker

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If you’re the type who stockpiles water and canned beans in anticipation of the coming apocalypse, you were likely prepared for the coronavirus pandemic. For many of the rest of us, it happened faster than we could react. Plenty of people dismissed this outbreak as an overhyped flu, but before we knew it, schools and offices were closed. Just a few weeks ago, not many of us would have guessed that we’d be working from home and reteaching ourselves to cook.

You could see that transition from complacency to panic happen in real time in Ranker’s search traffic. Starting around the 11th of March, when the World Health Organization declared the novel coronavirus outbreak to be a pandemic, the lists Ranker readers were visiting through search engine results took a definite turn. Here’s the content we searched for as panic over the pandemic began to set in:

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March 1st to March 7th

During the first week of March, people on Ranker weren’t searching for much out of the ordinary. There was plenty of traffic to true crime blogs about serial killers like “The Crossbow Cannibal,” and when Joe Biden secured his frontrunner status on Super Tuesday, our list of his most memorable gaffes saw a predictable jump in visits. The tornado that devastated Music City is likely what drove visits to our list of celebrities who live in Nashville.

But what ended up being the canary in the coal mine was traffic to Weird History’s list of “10 Gross Things People From History Actually Wiped With Before Toilet Paper.” While most people didn’t anticipate just how serious the situation with coronavirus would become, those who did raided their local grocery stores for toilet paper (though many are puzzled about why, exactly). Search traffic to this article multiplied five-fold from March 2nd and March 3rd, almost certainly in response to articles about cleared-out shelves of TP.

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March 8th to March 10th

Things got a little more frantic during this period — most notably, an article about the Spanish flu saw more visits from search engines starting on Monday the 9th. Search engine visitors were suddenly very interested in our list of “Best Canned Soup Brands,” suggesting people were beginning to get used to the idea of a quarantine.

Other commonly searched articles suggest that people were looking into vulnerable populations like the imprisoned or the elderly: an article about Rikers Island got a bump in traffic on the 9th as well. The fact that “Celebrities Turning 80 in 2020” went from four to 59 visits in one day could be a coincidence, but it could also be a result of people wondering about the health of their favorite celebrities and public figures — “Betty White” was trending on Twitter during this period, mostly due to memes concerned about the 98-year-old actress’s well-being. Interest may have been sparked by Howard Stern, who was speculating about which celebrities may be most at risk on his radio show throughout the crisis.

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March 11th to March 17th

Once a pandemic was declared, it became obvious that people’s online behavior was changing. Search traffic to Ranker surged overall, indicating that more people were coming to the site to seek answers to questions rather than just to entertain themselves. Visits to our list of “The Best Movies About Disease Outbreaks” tripled over the previous week, from 238 on the 4th to 616 on the 11th. The next day, the list was visited 1,006 times. Search traffic for the 13th was 1,250. 

And it turns out that music is just as popular a “coronavirus cope” medium as film. “Best Songs About Being Sick” made a steady upward trend starting the 11th, going from 128 organic hits to 364 on the 16th. “Upbeat Songs About the End of the World” went from 28 to 130 visits during that same period. “Best Apocalyptic Songs” had a smaller surge (116 to 181) starting the 12th. 

Visits to “Celebrities Turning 70” spikes on the 13th — and just in case you’re wondering if it’s related to the virus, “Best Celebrity Tombstones” got 76 organic hits that same day after only getting two visits a week before. 

Another indicator of people accepting “social distancing” is the desperate search for children’s entertainment as schools and daycare facilities shut down. “Best Kids’ & Family Shows on Netflix,” “Best Movies for 13-Year-Olds” “Good Movies for 4-Year-Olds” “Good Crafts for 3-Year-Olds,” and “The Best Movies for 10-Year-Old Kids” all got a lot more organic traffic than they usually do this past week. 

And finally, our Weird History list of historical toilet paper alternatives came back in a big way. On March 13, “10 Gross Things” had 110 more organic hits than it did the previous day, getting 271 total visits from search engines for that day alone. Our observation of this list is consistent with Google Trends data, which saw searches for “toilet paper” jump a little the first week of March and then A LOT in the weeks after.

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What’s to come for Ranker readers in the coming weeks? It’s hard to say; very little about the pandemic has been predictable thus far. But given how many of us will be stuck indoors with little to do but search things on the internet, we predict that people’s search behaviors will get a little weird. Be sure to check back here for more updates!

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These stories are crafted using Ranker Insights, which takes over one billion votes cast on Ranker.com and converts them into actionable psychographics about pop culture fans across the world. To learn more about how our Ranker Insights can be customized to serve your business needs, visit insights.ranker.com, or email us at insights@ranker.com.