Did the Trump election just make 110,621 Americans search for an open mic?

The month of November has never been particularly special for visitor numbers to openmicfinder.com. November 2022 saw 15,144 unique visitors and November 2023 got 16,606, both inline with the other months. The highest month in 2024 was October with 41,843 visitors, until November happened and saw a surprise 198,710 unique visitors, that's a 374% increase month to month!

But most revealing is the location data. The site is most visited by people in the UK with the US usually in 2nd place, generating just 60% the numbers as the number 1 spot does. But in November 2024 that stat inverted, with US in the top spot and the UK generating 50% of what the US did.

Switching to looking at hits now not visitors, comparing October '24 to November '24 the UK traffic saw just an 18% increase (pretty normal as the days get shorter), but US hits leaped from 61,751 in October to 172,372 in November! That a 179% increase. Essentially the sudden increase in traffic can be accounted for by the US.

And I have no idea why. I don't have the tools to explain this sudden interest but I do have a suspicion. I have noticed over the past decade the term "open mic" becoming more strongly associated with political activism, rallies and protests. A stage where people get their moment to voice an opinion to a crowd. If those 110,621 people were looking for that kind of event on openmicfinder.com they would have been severely disappointed because it's all music, poetry and comedy on there.

The site did come unnervingly close to becoming part of the culture wars at one point when someone added a women-only event in Manchester. I had a moment of conflict as I grappled with my duty of care as the site owner. Should I be facilitating events that discriminate based on gender? I weighed up my options and on the basis that the event did not represent the sole opportunity for people to perform in the area, I decided it was less impactful than it would be if it were the only open mic in a town for example. I let it be and to my relief it only lasted a month, bringing a swift end to my moral quandary.

So what do you think? Was that November spike in US traffic in definitely a reaction to President Trump's victory or is there another explanation? Do you know of any movements or references in popular culture that might account for it? Was there an episode of Stranger Things that did for open mics what Season 4, Episode 4 did for Running Up That Hill by Kate Bush?