How our Heroes Influence Us

I was analyzing Google trends data having to do with the trend of being vegan, cruelty free, and animal rights. The first thing that I wanted to see was how the trend is different in different continents.

It should come as no surprise that Europe leads the world in interest in these areas. I decided to examine specifically why people might be interested in going vegan. I decided to explore what I thought would be associated reasons for going vegan, alongside interest in the trend over time.

The above timeline shows interest in reasons for going vegan in parallel with the search trends for veganism itself. I was particularly interested in the spike in 2020. No spike was apparent for associated reasons, such as caring about animal cruelty or a healthy diet. However, an interest in climate change showed a spike around the same time.

I wondered what could have spiked an interest in climate change and veganism, so I was looking at a number of movies and books about the topic that came out that year. However, there was no correlation between these and the high interest in veganism.

Finally, I compared the interest in Greta Thurnberg and climate change. Here are the results.

It appears that an interest in Greta Thurnberg, climate change, and veganism all spiked at the same time. This trend is interesting because it points to how much we respect our heroes and how they influence us.

It also shows just how important an individual can be in influencing larger trends. Many people will say that they can do nothing to affect climate change, but the data shows a different story.