The 2018 Events I Completely Forgot About Until I Played Google’s ‘Game Of The Year’

The 2018 Events I Completely Forgot About Until I Played Google’s ‘Game Of The Year’

If you fancy yourself well-informed, then Google’s got the game for you. In addition to its usual ‘Year in Search’ video, it’s also released a ‘Game of the Year’ quiz to test just how well you remember what did (or didn’t) trend in 2018.

There are 20 questions total per game, as well as bonus rounds, a point system, and three lives before you lose. As of this writing, I have not made it all the way to the end, because many of the questions relate to things I completely forgot even happened this year. Like, apparently the term Laurel was searched more than Yanny, because that whole Laurel and Yanny thing happened this year. What.

There are questions regarding the designers behind Meghan Markle’s wedding attire (there was more than one?) and to my surprise, macrame made a comeback in 2018 because we’re all hanging plants now?

Some other choice trends and events Google highlighted in its 2018 quiz that I literally forgot happened this year:

  • IHOP becoming IHOB for a hot second

  • Bongo cat meme

  • The Kiki (or Keke) Challenge

  • The Olympics

  • The World Cup

  • The Keto diet and the prolonged abomination of people putting butter in their coffee

  • Crazy corn

  • Janelle Monae and Tessa Thompson’s Are-They-Aren’t-They romantic tension

  • Stephen Hawking dying

But for all the memes, DIY projects I did not pin to my Pinterest board, and bizarre food trends of 2018, Google’s game predictably leaves out many of the more serious news events of 2018. Like Facebook’s horrendous year of data privacy scandals, the Google walkouts, Harvey Weinstein’s arrest, Trump locking up immigrant children while Melania wore that awful jacket, and climate disasters like the Woolsey Fire.

The quiz did, however, point out to me and my colleagues that our collective amnesia only seems to be getting worse. Teens eating Tide pods happened this year—where was that in the quiz Google? At the moment, my best score is 456 points (please disregard the multiple quizzes in which I was awarded a hot score of zero).

If you’re eager to try it, let us know your top score in the comments below. And if this quiz had the same effect on you as it did us, feel free to chime in with something you’ve only just remembered about the extremely long year that was 2018.

Also, pro-tip: If you get a multiple choice question with Fortnite, the answer is probably Fortnite.

[9to5 Google]


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