In late 2020 and early 2021, sea shanties experienced a somewhat unexpected online revival in what is being referred to as "Sea Shanty TikTok". The tunes are generally centuries-old work songs penned and sung by merchant seamen with "Drunken Sailor" probably the best known. The unexpected boom in sea shanties occurred when several videos went viral on TikTok with new found fans of the genre taking to Twitter to declare 2021 "The Year of the Sea Shanty".
In early January, Google even announced that people were searching for sea shanties at the highest rate ever seen in the search engine's history. So, given that it's February, does the sea shanty boom still have wind in its sails? As this infographic shows, interest peaked in late January but the trend still has momentum with searches still going strong into early February.
