What people search for today: May 18 2026

Tony Hinchcliffe leads the May 17 capture while Drake, Off Campus, and Bill Cassidy pack the next slots, so one weekend can stack music, streaming, and election names beside a creator controversy. Fifteen Google Trends queries and eight Google News rows from the same timestamp pair typed curiosity with homepage picks for Monday briefings.

Top trending searches on Google: May 18

  1. tony hinchcliffe. Netflix's Roast of Kevin Hart on May 10, 2026 kept Hinchcliffe in clip and commentary traffic with Chelsea Handler, Pete Davidson, and other panelists named nearby.
  2. drake. Mid-May 2026 brought three surprise albums (Iceman, Habibti, Maid of Honour) plus opening-day streaming headlines and lyric searches.
  3. off campus. Prime Video released the hockey romance Off Campus on May 13, 2026, prompting binge and cast lookups after early renewal news.
  4. chelsea handler. Handler stayed in search beside other roast cast names as follow-up interviews and clips circulated.
  5. air force monica witt. Former Air Force officer Monica Witt remains wanted on U.S. espionage charges tied to Iran, and FBI reward reminders resurfaced her name in mid-May coverage.
  6. chud the builder shooting. A May 13, 2026 Montgomery County, Tennessee courthouse shooting tied to streamer Dalton Eatherly ("Chud the Builder") drove video and charging headlines.
  7. jeff ross. Ross stayed in traffic as roastmaster on the same Kevin Hart Netflix special.
  8. swatch watch. Swatch and Audemars Piguet's Royal Pop pocket watch drop on May 16, 2026 fed store-line photos and resale chatter.
  9. alex murdaugh. South Carolina appellate and documentary traffic kept Murdaugh in steady discovery volume.
  10. mackenzie shirilla. Ohio sentencing and appeal filings kept Shirilla's case in name-based search.
  11. obsession. The Obsession film opening added review and box office lookups alongside trailer clips.
  12. bank of america 7-eleven settlement. ATM surcharge class-action eligibility articles spiked consumer searches in May 2026.
  13. regina hall. Hall's roast set and red-carpet follow-ups tracked with the same Netflix event cluster.
  14. bill cassidy. Cassidy placed third in Louisiana's Republican Senate primary on May 16, 2026 and missed the runoff amid national political coverage.
  15. subnautica 2. Unknown Worlds shipped Steam early access on May 14, 2026, which pushed install, driver, and co-op setup queries.

The full list of 50 trending searches is available via the Trends MCP API. Get your free API key →

What today's Google Trends reveal

Entertainment still compresses the first ranks: one roast cluster, one multi-album music drop, and one streaming premiere keep several names in adjacent ranks. That pattern matters for SEO teams because a single broadcast window can mint several high-volume keywords at once.

Commerce and civics then fill the middle. Swatch queues repeat May's luxury-collab rhythm, the Bank of America and 7-Eleven settlement string shows how class-action explainers spike typed demand, and Subnautica 2 illustrates the usual early-access helpdesk queries. Cassidy's runoff miss, Witt's fugitive file, and the Chud courthouse clip sit in the same band, so politics and creator true crime can ride beneath entertainment without clearing the top slot.

Also trending: Google News Top News on May 18

Eight headline rows from the same capture lean toward security, budget politics, and international tension heading into Monday.

  1. Midair jet collision forces lockdown at Idaho Air Force base show - NBC News
  2. How Cassidy's loss could turn into an even bigger win for RFK Jr. - Politico
  3. A 'Revival' on the National Mall: White House Puts Prayer at Center of Washington - WSJ
  4. UAE reports drone strike at nuclear power plant as Iran war deadlock persists - Reuters
  5. Trump warns Iran "clock is ticking" until U.S. launches harder strikes - Axios
  6. 3 dead, 5 injured after car strikes people outside Oakland store - San Francisco Chronicle
  7. Thomas Massie unfazed by Bill Cassidy's defeat in Louisiana - Politico
  8. Senate parliamentarian nixes Trump's ballroom fund in budget bill - NBC News

Track these trends in real time with Trends MCP

Trends MCP returns ranked get_top_trends feeds so scheduled jobs can replace manual screenshots. The numbered Google list here used a top_trends pull on Google Trends, and the Google News lines came from the paired Google News Top News feed in the same response window.

{
  "mode": "top_trends",
  "type": "Google Trends"
}

Read the methodology and limits on the Google Trends data source page.

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