Items
Provenance is exactly
added creator text into publisher text; reformatted date; item curated in response to a request by the person who initially uploaded material, a response was emailed to contributor; JD 5/22/2020
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04/28/2020Google Searches for Banana Bread - on the news
This is a screenshot of the Alan Kohler's finance report on the 7 o'clock news in Tasmania, Australia. Kohler ended a characteristically dire covid19 financial report with this graph showing a spike in Google searches for banana bread in Australia. Firstly, this gives an insight into everyday life for Australians cooped up at home and trying to stay entertained and feel productive. Since making banana bread is usually a way to use up overripe spotty brown bananas, it also speaks to the lack of fresh fruit and vegetables in households at the moment with everyone minimising their grocery trips. Secondly, it's a nice visual of the phenomenon of "lockdown trends" - like zoom parties, sourdough and seedlings, the more that people posted their freshly baked banana bread on social media, the more others felt inspired to do the same. I also think this item reflects the urge of media producers to find light in the darkness and remind viewers of the novelties of lockdown life. Finally, I think this screenshot shows the surrealism of life in Covid19, a time when Google searches for banana bread are discussed alongside plummeting stocks in a finance report on the evening news and with our newly developed Covid19 intuition this strangeness has become a normality. #HUM403