Search words, and How To Track Silly Memes

Google Trends is rather an impressive new piece of software. In the style of late-90s favourites like Search Voyeur, it allows you to see what other people are hunting for. But instead of merely providing a list and allowing you to marvel at others’ illiteracy and perversion (these days, a function that Sitemeter is admirably capable of providing instead), it allows you to track the historical popularity of different words – and hence concepts.

For example, the concept of EUrabia, which gained popularity last year, is the serious belief, expressed by people who aren’t obviously insane, that Europe is soon going to become an Islamic or possibly Islamist (you can’t really expect these types to understand the difference) state. Fortunately for all concerned, it seems like the world has lost interest in this concept: searches for ‘EUrabia’ peaked in late 2004, tailed off throughout 2005, and have been negligible for a good six months.

A parallel concept, espoused by the likes of Melanie Phillips (oh noes! I lost the game!), is that of dhimmitude. Historically, dhimmitude is the way in which non-Muslims are expected to live in Muslim states – paying a special tax to make up for not paying the zakat, not being allowed to fight in wars, practicing their religion in private, etc. This is better than the way in which non-Christians were historically expected to live in Christian states, which is “not for very long, unless they convert”, but admittedly not an ideal situation to find oneself in.

The new dhimmitude, according to its proponents, is the way in which western society is so deferential to the feelings of Muslims that pork pies are banned, 5am prayers are compulsory, naked girls aren’t allowed on the covers of popular magazines, the government doesn’t invade Muslim countries on spurious pretexts, and so on. As can be seen from my examples, it’s a very real and serious problem.

Sadly, even as EUrabia dies out, dhimmi seems to be catching on. The word became popular enough to acquire a Google Trends ranking this year; although mentions have fluctuated over time, it currently seems to be on the up. Hopefully, it’ll follow its, err, ‘concept-sake’ into obscurity before long.

Google Trends also allows you to see the top regions for different search terms. Stereotypically enough, the top city for “NASCAR” is Charlotte, NC and the top city for “Pimms” is Cambridge, UK. Oxford doesn’t seem to appear in the Pimms rankings, possibly because it’s been erroneously classified under “Thames Ditton”, or possibly because it’s full of world-beating studious types instead of lazy drunken toffs.

This function is also interesting for meme-tracking – for example, the second-top city for searches for ‘dhimmi’ is Londonistan (a thankfully dead meme) itself. I hope this is made up mostly of people saying “I wonder what that strange word in the Melanie Phillips [ILTG] column means”, rather than people who seriously believe we might have to face a London without drunks, Old Compton Street, miniskirts and hot dogs…