Earlier this week I saw the trailer for the upcoming Disney Channel Original Movie Zombies, a musical about what happens when you integrate a school with zombies and human students, and I couldn’t help but wonder if this was the tipping point for the zombie craze. Zombies have been around for decades, but with the popularity of AMC’s The Walking Dead we’ve seen a surge in popularity over the last few years. But with The Walking Dead seeing it’s lowest ratings in six years and Disney releasing a Zombie teen musical where the lead actor looks like The Joker you can’t help but wonder if its time for zombies to die off already.
According to Google, the interest in the topic of zombies grew with the premiere of The Walking Dead in October of 2010. The trend continued to grow up until the start of 2014 and has seen a steady decline in interest ever since, with spikes taking place usually around the time of Halloween, the interest in zombies has dropped nearly to the levels they were at the start of 2010 before The Walking Dead craze took off.
In 2010 topics related to zombies thrived thanks to video games like Call of Duty: Black Ops, Red Dead Redemption, Plants vs. Zombies and the premiere of The Walking Dead television series, but in 2017 the topic of zombies seemed less about popular culture and more about narcotics and an actual zombie apocalypse. In fact, in 2017 the Zombie Frappuccino was probably the only growing popular zombie topic of the year.
With us being just over a week into the new year it’s still too soon to tell with Google’s data what the zombie trends will be, if any in 2018. The Disney Channel’s Zombie movie is currently at the top, but is a zombie teenage musical enough to keep the zombie train going, or is it the nail in the coffin that finally puts the popularity of zombies to rest? While I love zombies as much as the next horror fan, I think its time for the genre to take a break and make way for something new that goes bump in the night. What are your thoughts on zombies and their constant presence in popular culture? Let me know in the comments below or start up a dialogue on Facebook or Twitter!
Featured Image by: Ell Christman
