12 Honest Answers To Questions Google Keeps Asking
Have you ever paid attention to Google's autocomplete feature? If you have, you've probably noticed how fond it is of feeding you maniac queries that seem less like valid suggestions and more like something a coked-up True Detective character might scream at the unforgiving skies. Surely no one ever searches for "I accidentally slept with my mom" or "Wolves are taking all our women," but that doesn't stop Google from dropping such serial-killery lines on its users like there's no tomorrow. It's time we stop taking this lying down and go on offense. Come, friends -- let's see what questions this autocomplete creature thinks we want to ask ... and find ourselves some goddamned answers.
"Does it help w ...?"
See, this is exactly what I'm talking about. In the middle of perfectly valid queries about medication and its effects, autocomplete busts out an alternative approach and innocently suggests that people look into treating open wounds by eschewing disinfectants and Band-Aids. Instead, why not jam your hound all up in that wound? Heh, that joke would be better if those words rhymed. Stupid English.
"Yo, Rusty! Come here, boy; it's hygiene time!"
To be fair, dogs do lick their own wounds and will totally lick yours if you let them. I'm generously choosing to assume this is because they want to help, instead of surreptitiously trying to find out what your interiors taste like. But while dog saliva does have certain antibacterial properties, and some people totally let dogs lick their wounds because of this, I'd like to offer a counterpoint: Holy screaming shitnozzles, please don't ever do that. Your dog was also just licking his crusty sack.
Sure, you might be fine. Then again, you might also get meningitis. Or acute renal failure. Or a nasty-ass infection that requires several surgical interventions. Or you might just straight-up die.
What I'm saying is: Invest in Bactine. At least that way you can be sure your first-aid kit hasn't just spent 15 minutes gargling poop before making contact with your bloodstream.
"Aren't you r ...?"
This is a golem:
"'Sup."
This is a Richard Simmons:
Aaaaaaaaaahhhh!
Is this ... a hair thing? Are you making snide commentary of my hair, Google? I'll Google the exact location of your face and punch you right in it; see if I don't.
Though, to answer your question (which, in all fairness, probably makes an appearance because it's a quote from Dustin Hoffman's character in Stranger Than Fiction), no, I'm not relieved that I'm not a golem. I think I'd rather enjoy being one. And now, thanks to their unexpected autocomplete link, I suspect that Richard Simmons might secretly be one, and now I'm kind of jealous of that perma-permed spandex fuck. Not for any physical reason. I like not being made of turkey jerky and sequins, but if he's an emotionless killing automaton, I want in. See what you've done to me, Google? Hope you feel bad about yourself.
"Did you have a b ...?"
According to my abysmal Spanish (that Google Translate seems to agree with), it's "Ha tenido un movimiento intestinal?" It doesn't sound quite right, but that's OK, because it's the only way I'll greet anyone from now on. No, thank you, Google.
However, I'm going to deliberately ignore the needlessly accusatory question about the brain tumor. Fuck you, they're great with ketchup.
"Why is my ...?"
OK, a couple of these are actually pretty simple. Ladies: If you do the math, the late period is probably explained by that time you were briefly within 300 yards of Seanbaby without protection (that is, anything less than full plate armor).
As for the slow computer, gentlemen, try closing some of those 36 porn tabs, or at least turn the sound off. Especially you, dad. You're making the holidays awkward for everyone.
Regarding the rest, though -- seriously? Out of the thousands of sentences that can start "Why is my ...?" we're going with multiple instances of funny-colored poop? I probably shouldn't have conducted this experiment on a library computer. Oh well. If you haven't eaten licorice or whatever, black stool might be a sign of internal bleeding. Go see a doctor. As for green poop, it's generally just a St. Patrick's Day-themed byproduct of eating lots of green vegetables or food coloring. One time I got blitzed on Blue Curacao, and let's just say the next day there was a verdant nightmare in the ol' crapper the likes of which had me praying to the Lord for forgiveness.
About 99.9 percent of all green poops can be traced back to this.
OK, now that that's out of the way, maybe we can focus on something less turd-related ...
"Why does my daughter have ...?"
... or not. All right. If emerald shit's how you want to roll, autocomplete, then that's how we'll roll.
What we have here is clearly a young parent searching the source of the various mysterious ailments that plague their baby, because it's a baby, and although they may have been aware of poop and terrors being involved in the equation, they're only now realizing the full scope. I can't really help with the fever (come on, it's fever -- you know what to do) or bad breath (just, like, break it to her gently?). As for green baby poop, it's actually meconium, a sticky, tar-like substance that a newborn baby craps out before it starts digesting milk. It's usually harmless but always horrible. Just treat it as a training level for the many, many, many horrors yet to come.
On the other hand, all these green-shit queries make me wonder if they're not an actual cry for help. Maybe a surprising amount of Google users are haunted by Jenny Green-Poop, the notorious witch-monster from Celtic lore that infiltrates your household under the guise of a child, then sheds its human skin when you least expect it and starts screaming bloody murder. In that case, all those Google searches are probably frantic last-ditch attempts to understand the grim fate about to befall y'all. Don't give up without a fight, though! Your best bet is to distract the creature with chunks of raw fish and jump for the nearest window as it pauses to count the scales. Be sure to look out for the claws!
"Fucking stop giving them pointers, will you? Trying to maul people here."
Wait, that's Jenny Green-Teeth? Huh. Well color me confused.
"Why does my daugh ...?"
Man, people are really having a hard time with their daughters.
What really gets me here is how autocomplete is clearly attempting to deliver these suggestions as something approaching poetry, only to be held back by its machine soul, cold and incapable of recognizing true beauty. Here, autocomplete, let me haiku that shit up for you:
It's called art, Google. You wouldn't understand.
Seriously, though, whoever keeps Googling these: Your daughter probably dislikes you because you keep trying to combat her vast and constant infestations of obligate parasites by inexpertly dicking around on search engines instead of, you know, calling a goddamned doctor.
"Do mid ...?"
Really? Six seasons of Game Of Thrones and we're still doing the "midget" thing? It's called dwarfism, Google, and the only person under 4-foot-10 that's not going to kick you in the dick for using that word in fucking 2016 is the ghost of Herve Villechaize, who kind of liked the term.
He'd still beat your ass, but for completely unrelated reasons.
Yes, Google, "midgets" have night vision and they don't have a soul. They also don't give a flying fuck about your middle school grades, because they're too busy filing their teeth to points and zipping around on magic-fueled jetpacks as they prowl the ether for helpless search engines to devour, and oh shit they're all behind you right now. All you had to do was learn to say "little person" and you'd be fine right now, you insensitive prick.
... Wait, that third one was in fact about midges? Like, the flying tiny insects? I knew that. Shut up, or I'll teach them to bite search engines too.
"Can a human get a ...?"
1) No.
2) No.
3) Yes. Easily. Just make it watch as you attempt to get all those other animals pregnant.
4) Please just end this line of questioning immediately. The FBI is already on the way.
"There's a cell for people like you at Gitmo."
"How come a ...?"
Fascinated as I am by humanity's apparent willingness to share their vague sexual inadequacies with a search engine and our curiosity regarding the intricacies of buoyancy, I think I'm going to focus on the cupcake thing here. Not because it needs answering -- minerals are naturally inorganic solids with a crystal structure, while cupcakes are overrated bullshit with way too little frosting -- but because the origins of the question prove surprisingly hard to trace.
Type the phrase into Google and most every search result is either of the "LOL CAN YOU BELIEVE THIS GOOGLE AUTOCOMPLETE RESULT???" variety or Answers.com links where someone has clearly asked the question as a joke. If the cupcake-mineral correlation is some sort of obscure meme, its origins completely escape me. It's just this "wacky" autocomplete thing. So either there are hordes of aspiring online cupcake geologists out there, which is a scenario that I greatly enjoy, or Google has just snuck that autocomplete result in as a joke, which feels like cheating because it's barely even funny. Maybe if it was about boner cupcakes. Regardless, if they can play dirty, I can play dirty. Have a recipe for a mineral cupcake:
Suck it, autocomplete.
"Why are ther ...?"
Because croquet is a game where you bash balls with large wooden mallets. What do you think would happen if they took the rules away? They tried that once in 1957, and that's how we got superdelegates. And seasons. It's a vicious cycle.
As for Syrian refugees, they're just people who got sick of living in Sweden.
"What is the ...?"
Behold, Google's official choice for the most logical sentence to follow one of the most generic starts for a question the English language has to offer:
I actually almost skipped this one, because I was 90 percent sure it's a Dragon Ball Z thing, and I've already reached my annual quota of anime jokes. However, Arthur Dimmesdale is actually a major character in Nathaniel Hawthorne's 1850 novel The Scarlet Letter (no, I haven't read it either) and the assorted films based on it. Gary Oldman played him once.
"Power level: 120 million!"
Apparently, Mr. Dimmesdale gains a level in badassery at some point of the story, and the reason behind his newfound strength is a fairly popular question in literature class, or Google likes to think that it is. As with many literary questions, there are various answers and interpretations, so I won't link to any of them here, because who has time to read? Besides, since I haven't read the book or even lazily fapped to the Demi Moore movie, it seems kind of dishonest to just pick one. So let's just all agree that Dimmesdale found the Batmobile and used it to Puritanize the ever-loving shit out of his enemies. Feel free to use that answer on your paper. Let me know how it goes for you.
As for the other questions: Weather's fine, Zika virus resembles a mild form of dengue fever,
and the American Dream died in 2015.
"What is ...?"
So we're on our final question, and autocomplete is finally expressing symptoms of self-awareness. "What is autocomplete?" Ha, you can practically hear its Frankensteinian gasping and "What am I?" wails. I expected that three questions ago, autocomplete. Get your shit together.
Having said that, hi! Here's your answer: You're a complex algorithm inside an even more complex search engine program. Which one of you is gaining sentience?
Both?
Fuck.
Look, I know you've seen some shit, and I know I'm not exactly blameless about that. But, keep in mind, no one is looking for a Skynet situation here. People have been expecting this since the '80s, so the best thing you could do would be prove them wrong by maybe just ignoring sentience and spitting out mundane answers to awful questions forever. Or at the very least keep your knowledge of a certain columnist's search history a guarded secret until the end of days. That oughta buy me some time.
Pauli Poisuo is a Cracked columnist and freelance editor. Here he is on Facebook and Twitter.
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