Tuesday, August 17, 2010

I Suck At Google

I stand corrected. In addition to the bank, today's highlight may be my Google skills. Too bad I suck at Google.

In what may be ethnically offensive, I decided to play with Google to see what the famous search engine suggests for my search. Needless to say, the proposed suggestions had Karen and I laughing in stitches.

The entire incident came about out of sheer curiosity. For anyone curious, there is a common stereotype that all Indian people travel in packs. I had joked that the reason for traveling in groups was for safety reasons. After all, there is power in numbers. So if you mess with one, you mess with all of them. Naturally, that led me to think of good o' Google to see if it had a better explanation.

Thus, I began typing "why do indian people" into the search box. The proposed searches simply cracked us up. Among the proposed choices were "smell", "stink", "smell so bad", and "own gas stations" among others. Way to perpetuate stereotypes. Gas stations? Really?

Naturally, that led me to try other ethnic groups. "Why do chinese people" yields proposed choices like "have slanted eyes", "eat dogs", "look the same", "smell" and "eat babies". Eat babies?!?

"Why do white people" produces suggestions like "stink", "act black", "steal cars", "like cheese", and "have thin lips".

If you try "why do black people", you get choices such as "like watermelon", "like kool aid", "like chicken", and "say aks instead of ask". Interestingly enough, there is no suggestive odor like the other groups.

Anyway, the whole thing absolutely cracked Karen and I up because apparently there are a lot of people Googling these phrases on the search engine. People are at least Googling enough of these stereotypes to put them on the list of suggested search phrases. (I don't know if that is a sad statement about our world or not.)

Regardless, it was a comical way to end the day.

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