Google Trends: 2020 Presidential Election; R&B Singers Brandy and Monica Break Social Media
Data from Google Trends reveal that the United States Postal Service (USPS) has gained a lot of attention this election period, while also showing how R&B singer Monica trended more than Brandy pre and post Verzuz battle.
By Ashonti Moffett
USPS informs voters that there may be a possibility that their ballots will not be casted in time for the 2020 Presidential Election
The 2020 U.S. Presidential election is rapidly approaching. In fact, we are a little under two months away from finding out who our new elected official will be. Will it be Democrat and former Vice President Joe Biden? Or will 45th President Donald Trump be re-elected?
Due to the pandemic and wanting to adhere to safety guidelines, many people have decided to cast absentee ballots for the upcoming election.
News regarding the status of absentee ballots have been swarming social media. It was brought to public attention by the USPS that votes may not be counted in time for the election due to funding and delays from the pandemic, which could potentially lead to feelings of disenfranchisement.
Google Trend shows that searches of ‘USPS’ (blue) has notably been searched more than term ‘Election’ (red) within a timeframe of the past 90 days, due to mailing delays. In early August, there was one day in which Google searches regarding the election almost surpassed news about USPS.
In an interview on Fox News, Trump made remarks about USPS that alluded to mail-in voting/absentee ballots leading to voter fraud. Based on comments made by Trump over the past few weeks, many voters and politicians are beginning to believe that he is trying to manipulate election results in his favor by opposing funding for the postal service.
R&B Singers Brandy & Monica Break Records in Verzuz Battle
Since we are not able to attend the many festivals and concerts that we are used to attending, many of the ‘normal’ and in-person activities we used to be able to physically attend have become virtual over the course of the pandemic, concerts being one.
Verzuz DJ battles have become very popular since the start of the pandemic. These battles were co-founded by Swizz Beatz and Timbaland, longtime rappers and record producers, who were most notably recognized for big hits they created in the 1990’s and after. In these real-time virtual battles, participants choose ten songs each in which they feel best represents their catalog.
Over the course of quarantine, Verzuz (@verzuztv via Instagram) has hosted some of the most anticipated and legendary battles between producers, rappers, and singers, averaging a few hundred thousand to a million views, until Brandy and Monica’s debut.
On August 22, 2020 in an Instagram post by VerzuzTV, they released the official flyer that showed Brandy and Monica would be battling. When fans received this information, social media went into a frenzy; the two of these women were trending on social media for a week prior to the battle, during the battle, and broke records after the battle.
From this Google Trend, you can see that the two of them began trending the moment the flyer was released on August 22, 2020. The fanbase and number of people who were rooting for Monica (red) compared to Brandy (blue) showed numerically; Monica was searched and discussed more, however, the individual data didn’t move much until the day of the performance, August 31, 2020.
Together, they generated more than one million tweets (more than the VMA’s), had more than 6 million live viewers, re-entered Apple music charts, and held 30 out of 40 songs on Apple music’s top 40 R&B soul tracks chart.
