You can see the initial spike in interest in buying plants online in April. But those searches eventually subside, replaced by slightly less happy ones.

Now, “wilting plant” and “dying plant” have taken over – those who purchased plants in lockdown are now struggling to keep them alive. Alongside this search data, we found that posts to /r/gardening (where gardeners share their troubles and tips) peaked in late May with over 30k posts in a week. Volumes have since remained high throughout June and July.

The answer to whether or not this green fingered trend continues depends on how discouraged these new gardeners are by the effort of tending to their plants. The fact that they’re actively seeking advice is promising.

Sourdough

During the pandemic, we’ve reported on various lockdown baking fads, and sourdough and banana bread are almost certainly the most prominent.

Let’s see how they look in terms of search interest.

As you can see, banana bread had the largest and earliest spike in search interest, but it trailed off within a few weeks. Sourdough was slower to catch on and the spike wasn’t nearly as sudden, but it’s also taken a longer time to slow down.

Perhaps the more telling way to see which baked good is more likely to become a long term installment in bakers’ repertoires is how big the interest is now compared to before the pandemic. The latest data shows that banana bread search interest is now 59% higher than it was on March 1. For sourdough, interest is up 127%.

Social data tells a similar story – while banana bread hit a bigger peak, sourdough mentions eventually took over and the curve in interest over time was more long-lived.

If we had to make a guess, we’d say sourdough has more potential than banana bread to become a future go-to recipe for keen bakers.

Learning a language

Back in March we found tens of thousands of people talking about learning a new language. Have we continued with the habit?

Google Trends data shows that interest in learning a language has remained fairly stable for the last few weeks, and it’s generally higher than levels were before the pandemic.

Posts on /r/languagelearning show a similar pattern, with a spike in May and stabilized conversation levels afterwards that are higher than before the pandemic started. While lockdowns were in place in March and April, there were more mentions on the subreddit in May and June.

At this point, language learning is potentially the most promising of the hobbies in this bulletin in terms of the longevity of interest.

That said, the world could change again and we are by no means back to normal. While some hobbies didn’t last long, some have proven they’re sticking around for the medium term. But there’s no knowing what lies ahead.

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Brandwatch Response Team