What if Google was a Guy?
January 22, 2014 11:34 PM   Subscribe

 
Took me a minute to get that the one guy was Googling himself.

Overall, solid A.
posted by sbutler at 11:41 PM on January 22, 2014 [5 favorites]


I'm trying to convince people to start saying "google it" with the second G soft. GOO-gel it!
posted by carsonb at 11:47 PM on January 22, 2014 [1 favorite]


Oh fucking shit!

Well done.
posted by Pudhoho at 11:51 PM on January 22, 2014 [7 favorites]


Funnier than I expected!

I would love having a search engine that had reactions to my searches. Mmmm, unpredictable AI!
posted by batmonkey at 12:33 AM on January 23, 2014 [1 favorite]


Dull
posted by dfriedman at 12:39 AM on January 23, 2014


Hah, well done!
posted by dg at 12:40 AM on January 23, 2014


I'm trying to convince people to start saying "google it" with the second G soft. GOO-gel it!

No, you need hard Gs. If you say google while gargling you can fit seven or eight hard Gs in there.
posted by justsomebodythatyouusedtoknow at 12:40 AM on January 23, 2014 [1 favorite]


If (when) Google ever turns into an AI, I hope it will be possible to "skin" it. I vacillate between having mine be John Cleese or Stephen Fry.

/randomtoughtoftheday
posted by Harald74 at 1:00 AM on January 23, 2014 [4 favorites]


Pffft David Bowie obviously, Hiro represent.

Also, I will henceforth be using the soft g Google
posted by fullerine at 1:53 AM on January 23, 2014 [1 favorite]


long o, soft g -- GOOOO GEL!
posted by empath at 2:14 AM on January 23, 2014 [1 favorite]


I want the John Cleese skin, but only if it makes snide remarks about my searches.
posted by Pope Guilty at 2:52 AM on January 23, 2014


Quite funny.

(There should have been serious-looking me in non-descript suits writing things down in pads, or the guy could have been handing them copies.)
posted by maxwelton at 2:58 AM on January 23, 2014 [1 favorite]


That was pretty classic. I only identified myself in, oh, I don't know, about 10 of those....
posted by HuronBob at 2:58 AM on January 23, 2014


No, make the "G" a ghayin. When you say "Google" it sounds just like you're trying to clear phlegm from the back of your mouth.
posted by Joe in Australia at 3:23 AM on January 23, 2014 [1 favorite]


I make videos for work. We use stock, royalty-free music available online a lot. It's very weird when it shows up elsewhere, even though that's kinda what it's supposed to do.
posted by dumbland at 3:43 AM on January 23, 2014 [2 favorites]


If (when) Google ever turns into an AI, I hope it will be possible to "skin" it. I vacillate between having mine be John Cleese or Stephen Fry.

Anne Ramsay, for me.
posted by Sticherbeast at 3:53 AM on January 23, 2014 [2 favorites]


Someone Totally Not Me: "porn bottomless cheerleader"
Google: O_o
Someone Totally Not Me:"^H^C^H^C^H definitely adult college over-18 mature"
Google: Here ya' go.
Someone Totally Not Me: "mature"
posted by Ivan Fyodorovich at 4:18 AM on January 23, 2014 [3 favorites]


It's something that was lost in the mists of the early web, but there was a guy who used to watch one of the search engine crawlers (you could look at what people were searching for in real time) and would make note of the silliest ones he saw.

By far the best one he had listed - one I have remembered for 15 years now - was:
electric yanni boat
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 4:21 AM on January 23, 2014 [6 favorites]


Didn't Google at one point have them scrolling across a ticker screen in real time in the lobby of their office?
posted by dg at 4:32 AM on January 23, 2014


A few years ago I discovered the Google Search autocomplete function and what it reveals about some common question-based searches. Stereotype warning.
posted by Miko at 4:57 AM on January 23, 2014


That would have been better if one minute shorter because the ending was very good.
posted by bukvich at 5:00 AM on January 23, 2014


He'd need a strong stomach.
posted by Drexen at 5:06 AM on January 23, 2014


That was great. What is the guy that sounds like he's asking about Adderall saying?
posted by griphus at 5:28 AM on January 23, 2014


re the googling yourself thing:

I share a name with a person who was accused of killing her kids (since exonerated) and googling my name used to turn up this person all the time. I used to have my name on my profile page. Then once I hung out on metachat, sort of before I was fully aware of the accused-child-killer, and somebody on metachat asked me:

"Angrycat, why'd you kill your kids?"
"I --- I don't have any kids."
"Well, not ANYMORE."
posted by angrycat at 5:30 AM on January 23, 2014 [31 favorites]


Very funny, IMO. Very clever idea.
posted by Fists O'Fury at 5:33 AM on January 23, 2014


Ha! I run an internal social community at work, and have to run a report on search terms used each week. I feel exactly like that.
posted by xingcat at 5:52 AM on January 23, 2014




Shouldn't the guy have handed each person a couple of ads before giving them the thing they asked for?
posted by Thorzdad at 6:02 AM on January 23, 2014 [5 favorites]


I think the Google clerk should have been wearing Google glasses, and each user should have been surrounded by swarming consumer labels "masturbates 4 times a day" "buys generic baggies" "Tea Party contributor" "credit rating 540" etc.
posted by surplus at 6:14 AM on January 23, 2014 [1 favorite]


If (when) Google ever turns into an AI, I hope it will be possible to "skin" it. I vacillate between having mine be John Cleese or Stephen Fry.

Have you considered Brian Blessed ?
posted by Diablevert at 6:14 AM on January 23, 2014 [4 favorites]


Didn't Google at one point have them scrolling across a ticker screen in real time in the lobby of their office?

There isn't one single lobby, but yes, some of the buildings still have this. It's heavily filtered, of course. There's also an internal screensaver version.
posted by CheeseDigestsAll at 6:14 AM on January 23, 2014


What is the guy that sounds like he's asking about Adderall saying?

"Adderall max dose? Adderall max dose...165 pound man? Adderall max dose 165 pound man...20 years old? ADDERALL OVERDOSE SIGNS?!"
posted by DaDaDaDave at 6:34 AM on January 23, 2014 [6 favorites]


Was the hedgehog girl verymarykate?
posted by psoas at 6:49 AM on January 23, 2014


But what if Google was a girl? Would her answers be useful at all (this is in reference to the S Sandberg article recently asking if she deserved to make 1 Billion dollars).
posted by Napierzaza at 6:53 AM on January 23, 2014


Reminds me of Facebook in Real Life or this one.
posted by msbrauer at 7:00 AM on January 23, 2014 [3 favorites]


/Me leaps over the desk, shaking Google by his shoulders.

"NO! I MEANT THE THING I SAID! IF I MEANT SOMETHING ELSE I WOULD HAVE SAID THAT!"
posted by Horace Rumpole at 7:04 AM on January 23, 2014 [16 favorites]


"NO! I MEANT THE THING I SAID! IF I MEANT SOMETHING ELSE I WOULD HAVE SAID THAT!"

I would kill for some kind of toggle to take off the "we saw what you wrote but we think you meant something much more popular than that" feature. I mean, I'm a terrible speller, true, but a lot of the time I'm scrolling through the whole page perplexed by how nothing seems remotely relevant to what I'm after before I notice they've completely changed one of my key words.
posted by Diablevert at 7:15 AM on January 23, 2014 [4 favorites]


You can filter Search tools -> All results -> Verbatim, but you have to do it for each search as far as I can tell.
posted by Horace Rumpole at 7:22 AM on January 23, 2014


Google depicted as Stephen Fry, also known as "Ask Jeeves".
posted by East Manitoba Regional Junior Kabaddi Champion '94 at 7:28 AM on January 23, 2014 [3 favorites]


Well. That's just hilarious!
posted by michellenoel at 8:03 AM on January 23, 2014


Horace Rumpole: "You can filter Search tools -> All results -> Verbatim, but you have to do it for each search as far as I can tell."

If you use search keywords, using the query string
http://www.google.com/search?tbs=li:1&q=%s
will make Google searches always use Verbatim.

(Preceding example is for Mozilla-based browsers. Searching for "keyword search [browser]" should get you there for other browsers.)
posted by t3h933k at 8:35 AM on January 23, 2014 [5 favorites]


(t3h933k's example is also the syntax for Google Chrome.)
posted by Zozo at 8:39 AM on January 23, 2014 [1 favorite]


EmpressCallipygos: "It's something that was lost in the mists of the early web, but there was a guy who used to watch one of the search engine crawlers (you could look at what people were searching for in real time) and would make note of the silliest ones he saw."

I love stuff like this. It's called Kev Space's Funny Searches "Hall of Fame."
posted by yaymukund at 9:26 AM on January 23, 2014


Thanks for the tips, y'all. I do still long for a toggle, though. Like I said, this is terribly First World Problems of me, but I am an awful speller, probably the majority of the time I don't notice when they switch it up; but that minority of the time it's darn irritating.
posted by Diablevert at 9:30 AM on January 23, 2014


I miss Metacrawler's Metaspy.
posted by fullerine at 12:55 PM on January 23, 2014


What if Google was a Guy?

Did you mean "What if Google were a guy"?
posted by weapons-grade pandemonium at 12:57 PM on January 23, 2014 [3 favorites]


I use the irrealis and for some reason "was" grates, but it's a minority usage in decline. "Was" is fine.
posted by Ivan Fyodorovich at 1:11 PM on January 23, 2014


I use the irrealis

You gonna get a crick in you neck you keep you nose alla way up there
posted by ook at 1:50 PM on January 23, 2014


I would kill for some kind of toggle to take off the "we saw what you wrote but we think you meant something much more popular than that" feature.

Killing not required.
posted by flabdablet at 5:45 PM on January 26, 2014


« Older How dogs and cats teach their little ones to walk...   |   The Library as an Economic Model in the Second... Newer »


This thread has been archived and is closed to new comments