Early memories of Minecraft sound like a mixture of "Can’t Hold Us" by Macklemore and Ryan Lewis, "Blurred Lines" (you know exactly the one), and "Harlem Shake". In 2013, at the height of Minecraft’s popularity, the word “selfie” became part of common vernacular for the first time and was named word of the year by Oxford Dictionary. For many of us college students, those were our middle school days, and it’s probably best to leave those in the past. That’s exactly what happened, according Google Trends. Following Minecraft’s meteoric rise in 2013, it dipped and has been steadily decreasing in web search popularity on Google and YouTube. But seemingly out of nowhere, it’s trending again?

In order to put Minecraft’s comeback in perspective, many journalists have compared its popularity to Fortnite’s. Both of these games have been at the top of the chart for the past five years both in web searches and on YouTube, handily beating other popular video games like the Call of Duty and Grand Theft Auto series. In March 2018, Fortnite surpassed Minecraft in YouTube searches for the first time in its history. Fortnite’s popularity remained a lot higher until the tables turned in June 2019, when Minecraft videos resurfaced on YouTube. Since then, Minecraft searches have been steadily rising as Fortnite’s steadily dip.

Now that classes are over, most of the country is still quarantined, and Minecraft is back on the rise, why not take a walk down memory lane and re-download Minecraft? I discovered the game back in 2012 and downloaded the pocket edition so I could play with my younger cousins who didn’t have a console. Back then, there were no mine carts, no horses, no Nether portals, no Endermen, no biomes, etc. Since then, the pocket edition has gotten so many updates that it looks almost like the Xbox version. Contrary to popular belief, the pocket edition supports online, cross-platform multiplayer, so even during the quarantine I can connect with my cousins from different cities.

As previously mentioned, even though the controls are very different, there isn’t a lot of variation between the Xbox version of Minecraft and the pocket edition – except for Story Mode. The recent bee update applied to both platforms so the differences are even slimmer. If you refuse to pay $20 for Minecraft on the Xbox One and have a tablet lying around, you can get the pocket edition for $6.99 on the App Store or Google Play. Take advantage of the soaring popularity or come out of hiding if you never stopped playing the game! Otherwise, check out Minecraft videos on YouTube and find out why it’s cool again.

Written by: Isabella Massardi | Instagram

Art by: Amanda Rivera | Instagram | Twitter