Welcome back to The Daily Social Distancing Show.
So, all of this month, we've been looking back at 2020,
remembering its big movies and music and events.
But we also wanted to go deeper
and reflect on what this year meant to all of us
and what we as people spent 2020 talking about
and even thinking about.
So we went to the folks at Google.
-#Ad. -(bell dings)
And they give us their Year in Search,
which is based on their Google Trends data
and has all of the top questions and moments and people
that the world searched for.
? ?
I learned a lot from this.
First off, I learned that I am the most searched for Trevor
this year.
Yeah! How you like that, Trevor Patterson
from Marietta, Georgia, ya bitch?
But we also got to see what people cared about in 2020.
And it's no surprise that COVID-19 dominated this year.
The coronavirus killed millions.
It separated families. It wrecked the global economy.
It caused depression.
The only thing COVID-19 didn't make worse
was the length of your Netflix queue.
You blazed through that shit.
And as the pandemic took over our lives,
we all found ourselves trying to learn
how to live in this new world.
We searched about washing our hands.
We searched about wearing face masks.
People taught themselves how to get quarantine haircuts.
And... that was a real predicament we had to deal with.
Do you cut your own hair?
Do you grow your hair out?
Or do you do what I do? Completely shave your head
and put on a slightly longer wig every week?
Although actually, the hardest part of cutting your own hair
is doing the back part.
But it doesn't matter these days,
because it just needs to look good enough
for your video chats.
Business in the front, pandemic in the back.
Oh, I'll tell you what I learned.
For me, hair is now the biggest inaccuracy
in all apocalypse movies.
I mean, look at Will Smith in I Am Legend.
That's the story of the last man on Earth...
who can still somehow get a tight fade
with razor work on temples and everything?
If that movie was going for realism,
he would have been walking around looking like Dr. J.
We all had to live with toilet paper shortages,
because this was the year the Charmin Bear
made the Fortune 500, and it got rough for a while.
I was buying up notepads from OfficeMax as a fallback.
You think one-ply is bad? Try college ruled.
And of course, we learned about all the sacrifices
made by frontline health care workers.
Here in New York, people cheered outside their windows
for health care workers every night at 7:00 p.m.
It was a small but sincere way to show appreciation for them.
And also a way to let me know what time it was,
because I completely lost track back in... April?
But COVID wasn't the only tragedy of 2020.
We lost so many great people.
We lost civil rights heroes.
We lost legends in sports and entertainment.
We lost a king.
Beirut endured a terrible explosion.
And climate change continued to devastate the world.
Wildfires burned through Australia
and turned California skies bright orange.
I mean, one thing that became clear this year
is that Mother Nature is definitely African.
You can tell by how mad she's getting.
Because when white moms get angry, they keep it inside,
and let you know in really subtle ways,
like donating your soccer trophies to charity.
But an African mother, if she's mad, you know it.
She'll be like: I will show you how much I love you
with how hard I spank you!
But 2020 also proved that we as a planet can endure anything.
Because all of 2020's good news came from people
triumphing over its challenges.
Parents learned how to become teachers.
And seeing how hard parents worked this year
to teach their kids at home was awe-inspiring and illuminating.
And it was a great reminder for everyone else
about the importance of birth control.
And pet adoption was huge.
Adoption skyrocketed,
and some shelters actually ran out of rescues.
Even I adopted a pet.
Although I'll admit, I... I went a little overboard.
-(elephant trumpeting) -No, I can't take you
on a walk right now, Jerry!
Had to get an elephant. My building said no dogs.
And maybe most importantly,
2020 will be the year the pandemic started to end
because we got together and developed a vaccine.
And not just any vaccine.
A vaccine that Dolly Parton funded.
Dolly Parton funding Moderna's COVID vaccine
might be the thing that saves us,
because there will always be places
that'll embrace anti-vaxxer views,
but nobody is crazy enough to be anti-Dolly.
And this year saw triumphs of all sorts.
We developed the vaccine. We went into space.
America elected its first female vice president,
Kamala Harris.
Kamala broke that glass ceiling so hard,
I'm still picking shards out of my eyes.
Kamala Harris is now the highest-ranked Black woman
in America, not counting Beyoncé,
Oprah and Michelle Obama.
And finally, this was the year
we learned the Black Lives Matter movement
finally stopped being considered controversial
and became mainstream and much more widely supported.
Kind of like how we wish the exact opposite
would happen with Crocs.
For all its challenges,
2020 felt like a year that Black people in America
finally had the country's attention.
And if that holds,
then America can finally start making real progress
on racial justice, reformed police departments
and maybe, just maybe,
teach white people to clap on beat.
So, that was 2020.
It was a bad time,
but in the darkest moment, we found light.
And if we can remember that light is always there,
maybe 2020 will have been worth it.
When we come back, we'll take a look
at America's top game show for voter suppression,
and Pharrell Williams joins me on the show.
But first,
have a look at Google's Year in Search.
(upbeat music)
- [Narrator] The most human trait is to want to know why,
and in a year that tested everyone around the world,
"why" was searched more than ever.
(people speaking in foreign languages)
- [Newscaster] The spread of the coronavirus
has passed a significant milestone.
- [Narrator] And while we didn't find all the answers,
we kept asking.
- [Woman] Lift off.
Some questions inspire joy,
others, excitement.
(people cheering)
- Life in a bubble. Woo.
- Do you love me? - Yes.
- You love me? - Yes.
- I don't know what an improper fraction is.
- Keep all of those distractions out of the way.
- We found toilet tissue, y'all.
- Oh my God.
- Put it on there and start it up for me.
- [Camera Operator] What are y'all doing?
- Yeah!!! - It's still March.
How many days in March?
- [Narrator] Some questions made us cry.
- [Kobe] We've been through our ups
and been through our downs.
I think the most important part
is that we all stay together throughout.
I love you guys.
- [Crowd] Kobe, Kobe, Kobe.
- [Narrator] Some made us worry about this spinning rock
we call home.
- [Newscaster] Fires were detected
in the Amazon rain forest.
- [Narrator] Why were so many lives lost?
- [Newscaster] Almost 1.5 million people have now died
of COVID-19 worldwide.
- [Narrator] Why are we still asking the same questions?
- George Floyd. - George Floyd.
- [Newscaster] George Floyd repeatedly told the officers
that he could not breathe.
- [Narrator] So why do we still have strength to continue?
♪ Together ♪
- I believe in your power.
- [Crowd] I believe in your power.
I believe in our power.
- [Crowd] I believe in our power.
- [Newscaster] Chants of "Black Lives Matter"
echoed from thousands of protestors
in cities around the world.
- [Narrator] Why are we not defeated?
- We have made too much progress and we are not going back.
We are going forward.
- [Newscaster] Planes are starting to arrive in Beirut,
full of international aid.
- [Newscaster] Fire fighters from around the world
arriving in California.
- [Newscaster] There are over 100 coronavirus vaccines
in development worldwide.
- [Narrator] This is one of those times
when people look out for one another
and have each other's backs.
- [Narrator] We kept going for those who showed us the way.
- Think about how you would like the world to be
for your daughters and granddaughters.
- Remember the struggles along the way are only meant
to shape you for your purpose.
Press on with pride and press on with purpose.
- Why is it that this year showed us its worst
and we still found ways to triumph?
- [Newscaster] An incredible feat from Maya Gabeira.
- [Newscaster Naomi Osaka, US Open Championship.
- Can't let corona stop you.
Can't let quarantine stop you.
- [Narrator] So until we get to every answer,
♪ Get it together ♪
♪ We're gonna get it together somehow ♪
we're still searching.