Searching for Wanda
Note: This infographic was put together as of February 24, 2021 - much of this search trend data has likely changed since the time this visual was created, due to the super dynamic nature of search.
WandaVision was the show that made me, and thousands of other television fans, fall completely back in love with weekly, episodic TV viewing.
It was a brilliant decision to have a show like WandaVision, which was both a sitcom of its own right (at least for the first few episodes…) and a celebration of the comfort to be found in the genre, be unveiled to the world one 30-minute episode at a time. Each episode was spaced one week apart, just how sitcoms used to be watched. Much has been written about the role that WandaVision has played in making content creators and streaming services think more critically about how they want their content to be consumed. I won’t rehash those discussions here, but instead I want to focus a bit around one of the things that made WandaVision viewing so fun: the weekly internet buzz surrounding it.
WandaVision brought to life weekly internet conversations (across Twitter, Reddit, Facebook, and dozens of other online platforms) about everything from specific fan theories to Easter Eggs to memories of specific classic TV call-backs to what the ‘right’ rules are for online spoiler etiquette. It also caused the internet to collectively discover Kathryn Hahn’s brilliance at pretty much the exact same moment. (Sidenote: Kathryn Hahn is indeed the best, and I was overjoyed to see the world finally call out how phenomenal and underrated she is).
All of the online chatter around WandaVision made it a perfect candidate for me to take a closer look at - and specifically to look at some of the internet search trend data surrounding the show. The infographic I created above is the result of me having way too much fun poking around Google Trends (which is a really enjoyable site to play around on, if you aren’t yet familiar with it!).
There were a few things I thought it would be interesting to look at on Google Trends:
Popular Search Autocomplete Suggestions: When I refer to “search autocomplete suggestions, this essentially refers to the phrases that Google suggests you finish your query with when you start typing something; I’m not referring to the more personalized recommendations (e.g. when a query you recently searched for comes up as a suggestion), but rather the popular suggestions that come up when you are searching on something for the first time. While search engines do not generally share their exact algorithm for determining which search autocomplete suggestions they display, it is typically assumed that these represent the most popular / common queries that users search for, that begin with the given phrase.
Search Trend Data (Both for Specific Characters, Actors, & the Show Overall) Over Time
Geographic Popularity (States / Countries with Highest Interest in WandaVision)
The above infographic shows what I found when looking in each of these areas. A few particular things that caught my eye as I was making the infographic were:
Apparently, as much as many people were loving WandaVision, there were also apparently LOTS of people searching for things like “why is wandavision so bad” and “why does wandavision suck” (harsh!). One theory I have is that there were quite a few folks who had “WTF” reactions after the first few episodes, especially if they were expecting full-on Marvel vibes and instead were treated to essentially a spot-on re-creation of the energy of The Dick Van Dyke Show and I Love Lucy. There also apparently were a lot of people wondering about Wanda’s accent, which I did indeed see as a hot topic on message boards and Twitter. For me, as someone who had never seen a Marvel movie before but gravitated to WandaVision due to its classic TV components, I would never have even thought to ask this question - but it’s great to see that fans were already actively wondering about things like this!
Not surprisingly, searches for “agatha” surpassed searches for “wanda” for the first time right after episode 7 (“Breaking the Fourth Wall”) aired. And yes, this was the episode that gave us that “Agatha All Along” ditty that pretty much broke the internet.
The internet clearly loves Elizabeth Olsen - she pretty much constantly led in search interest over the date range of this graph, with the exception of the days of the episodes when Kat Dennings and Evan Peters each first appeared AND the day when Evan Peters' ex Halsey announced her pregnancy. Also, note that this infographic was made on February 24, 2021, so it does not capture search traffic trends from the last couple of weeks of the show, which aired its final episode on March 5, 2021. Search traffic for Kathryn Hahn did increase after “Agatha All Along” (similar to traffic for her character, Agatha), but it still didn’t surpass the Elizabeth Olsen traffic. I also must give a shoutout to the amazing Teyonah Parris, who isn’t on the graph due to lower traffic, but was terrific on the show.
Apparently, Utah loves WandaVision! When I shared this infographic on Reddit, someone pointed out that apparently Utah has a hugely devoted MCU fan base. I’m not sure if there’s data behind this, or if it’s just an anecdotal observation - but in any case, it seems Utah has pretty good taste in television!
And, finally, a bit of context for that kid picture of Elizabeth Olsen in the lower right corner: The day before I made this graph, I had just discovered the brilliant Olsen Twins video of “B-U-T-T Out” - which essentially consists of the twins ROASTING their kid sister Lizzie (aka Elizabeth). So, I had to give it a little call-out on this graph. As a major Mary-Kate & Ashley fan growing up, I found the video hilarious - and I also found it super amusing that it took the internet getting about halfway through WandaVision for folks to collectively make the connection that Elizabeth Olsen was the younger sister of Mary-Kate & Ashley!
Beyond the fun of getting to theorize about what might come next on WandaVision from week to week (and, like many others apparently, searching across Google, Twitter, and other platforms to immerse myself into the conversation surrounding the show), what I enjoyed most about WandaVision was quite simply the fact that it was a show designed to be loved by TV lovers.
After the first three episodes (which I know many disliked, but I completely fangirled over), I made the following chart of some of the classic TV references that stood out to me from each episode. I know there are some very extensive guides out there to all the classic TV references in WandaVision now that the entire show has aired, but the below moments represent some of the ones that made me immediately enamored with this show. These moments were a bit part of what drew me into the online discourse and fan community surrounding WandaVision to begin with:
As much as I loved all the WandaVision references, I have to say that the Kitty Karry-All reference in episode three was my favorite (and I love that it came up again later in the show!).
As a final shoutout to all of the classic TV odes in WandaVision (and to highlight another topic that was actively debated among fans online!), I’ll leave you with the results of this just-for-fun poll that I conducted a few weeks back, looking at which WandaVision theme song folks liked best. Episode 2’s theme came out as the dominant winner, but I honestly don’t think there’s a bad theme in the bunch.
The classic-TV-inspired theme songs of WandaVision were another aspect of the show that made me all warm & fuzzy inside. My personal favorite theme was the 80s/90s one from episode 5, but the consensus was strong that most folks liked episode 2’s theme (with its perfectly on-point Bewitched vibes) the best.
So, thank you, WandaVision, for giving us plenty to search for over your nine-week run, for sparking way too many online discussions to count, and for providing a perfect collection of theme music to remember it all by… just like every great sitcom does.