Data Story Summary

The graph of the U.S. data shows the popularity of searches about vegetarianism at a greater percent popularity than veganism at its beginning in January of 2004 . The two search terms gradually converge at around 13% until around 2007 when they diverge clearly again, this time with veganism rising and vegetarianism staying at its constant rate. Veganism keeps increasing until a minor peak in December of 2016 at 90%. The searches go back down to 57% in early 2017, but springs back up to 100% in July of 2017. Since that peak, veganism search term popularity has been gradually falling and is at 72% as of September 2018. The graph with California data has roughly the same trends, except california has a lower consistent rate for vegetarianism and veganism rises above vegetarianism clearly in 2006, a year prior to the national data. Worldwide data has the same trends happening in the other graphs, but at a later time. The veganism search term rises above vegetarianism in 2012, 5 years after the U.S. The vegetarian consistent rate is also greater, hovering around 25% in worldwide data.

Conclusion

Since vegetarianism is well known to society, the searches for it have been consistent since 2004 because most internet users are not interested in an old concept. Veganism, however, has risen in popularity and recognition in the 21st century, and many people did not know much about veganism, prompting more and more searches for it as they encountered references to veganism in their life. The reason the popularity of veganism as a search term has begun to go down is because the majority of people know about it now, and therefore don't need to look it up.

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