Top 5 dumbass headlines bloggers love to run about Google
Google attracts hordes of bloggers and opinion-shovelers uploading ten sourceless articles a week in the hope they’ll be the one to correctly guess what happens. A flock of seagulls trailing a ship – noisy, annoying, they all look the same and they feed on the scraps left by people who are actually going somewhere. Here I list top five things people like to say about Google, in the hope that we can all agree these are now officially “Done”.
1. Google is Love
Google isn’t just a company, it’s a religion, and geek heaven is the grassy fields and wifi-enables shuttle buses of sunny California, a promised land that they might gain entry to if they preach the word hard enough. Google can do no wrong, and any who even dream of criticizing their smallest move will be subject to forum flaming the likes of which they have never seen, like unto the smiting of Sodom and Gomorrah.
Like any company-fanboy relationship, Google is happy that the fanboys are there, happy that they’re spreading free advertising, and very happy that not one of them is within ten square miles of their actual premises. Those who gain entry to Google Labs do so by actually being good at programming, innovation and teamwork. Sufficient obsession to tattoo the logo on themselves (and people have done it) is strangely not required.
2. Google is Evil
The famous “Don’t be evil” tagline makes Google are a prime target, and oh but the smug little bloggers do love to add “….. riiiiiiight”, (often augmented by rolling eyes emoticons) because it’s hip and edgy and way easier than making any kind of valid point. Truly, none can stand against such fearsome reportage. While some recent decisions (including voluntary censorship in the Chinese market) may not hold true to perfect ideals, the fact remains that Google is actually a company that still has to use our human money and not some transcendent messiah sent from beyond the stars to illuminate mankind in the ways of peace, light, and optimised search algorithms.
When actual news is lacking, anybody can generate their own “Google = Evil” story by pointing out how those nefarious schemers work to gather information on their users. A market-driven search engine company gathering information? Inconceivable! Bonus points for stories that use the phrases “Big Brother”, “Orwellian” or “1984″.
3. Their stock is the best ever
The loudest voice is usually the Google fanatic, the one who had that strange wide mug with all the “ooooo”s back when we were still choosing between Yahoo and Lycos. They put every penny they had into Google stocks (or more commonly, advised other people who actually had money to do so). They believe that Google is a source of infinite innovation and profit, and you should only sell your stocks once they’re worth enough to let you glide on platinum ice skates over a lake of frozen Bollinger for the rest of your life. Ironically, Google themselves could tell them why this is stupid if they’d just type in “depression”, “1929″ or “dot com bubble”.
4. Their stock is about to crash
The opposite is the naysayers and doom prophets, proclaiming that Google is about to crumble and all will be ashes and ruin for their supporters. They proclaim this about once a week on the grounds that hey, they have to be right sometime. Their “evidence” is never more than a vague claim that nothing can get bigger forever, an oblique reference to some recent headline and a veiled reference to the Depression. They’ll often throw in the soundbite “what goes up must come down”, thereby hitting two “Being wrong and stupid” birds with one mixed-metaphor stone, and generally painting a picture of a world where any business bigger than a convenience store is fiscally impossible and Walmart, HP and Google must all be figments of your imagination..
5. Google in legal trouble
People love suing Google, because it’s a great big name which some people equate with a chance at free money. And news sites love reporting that, because nothing gets the geek juices flowing like a scary “Google in Legal Trouble!” headline. The problem is these stories show as much thought and investigation of the original article as a photocopier, regurgitating the claim from another site as if it was an serious threat instead of the patent scam it usually is:
- “Google in personnel crisis!” instead of “Moron sues Google for daring to want to choose who works for them”
- “Chinese company files suit against Google” where it should read “Utterly fictional company tries scam so transparent it makes a Nigerian e-mail look convincing”
- “Google implicated in Murder!” instead of “Idiot (not associated with Google) tries to kill people (not associated with google) using instructions found on a website (not associated with google); another idiot sues Google”.
When you get so far from the original crime that you’re suing a search engine instead of the actual murderer, you might as well file claims against the transportation department because the roads allowed him to get to the crime scene instead of opening up and swallowing him.
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