The Office Jester… every office needs one to laugh it off when using Google for business trips someone up
Google permeates through virtually every aspect of modern day life. Just its most basic functionality i.e. online search is quickly becoming the cornerstone of modern day civilisation, not to mention all the other things the technology giant is working on. So it isn’t all that surprising that using Google for business is a fairly common practice in most companies these days.
For most of us, Google has become an intrinsic part of how we go about our professional lives. If there is the internet, then Google will be used at least a few times in a day. In fact, most people don’t even think twice before putting something into Google and pressing enter. But, have you ever thought about what you put in Google? Sometimes, the autocomplete will give you pause for thought but in the majority of cases, we doubt you’ve ever thought how Google will view your searches.
Some people did consider that, though. They imagined how things would be if Google was a real world dude and created a series of incredibly hilarious videos based on that premise. Since using Google for business has become common, we felt that these videos are a good fit for Office Jester for Office Hacks. In the interest of brevity, we’ll not be focusing on each video in detail. Instead, we’ll pinpoint the most notable aspects.
Warning: There are five of these videos. You better prepare yourself.
Using Google for Business: What If Google Was a Dude?
You can see the slight rawness in the script in this first instalment. It’s obvious that they weren’t as experienced in the concept as they get later. There were two standout pieces in this video.
One was the kid discovering what all Google can do. He explored with a censored subject and then really got atrocious with it up until he actually saw the images presented by Google. You could see the emotional scarring. That kid will grow up with some massive aversions or massive fetishes. By the way, the kid was a really good actor.
The other was the college jock who searched for “girls college” but then flipped it to “college girls” and a moment later added “nude”. A real subtle piece of change there showing how things used to be before machine learning and user intent were put in place by the search giant. The bit about unzipping the pants really drove home the point too.
The second video from these guys was a little more refined with the title “If Google was still a guy”. Again, there were two standout searches. The first was the “how to tell if pregnant” from an obviously teenage girl. This was followed by a guy searching for “how to tell if-“ before Google autocompleted the search. It is only then you realise that the guy was the teenager’s father.
The other was a semi-political joke where an Islamic dude searched for “local mosque Seattle”. His search caused the appearance of a dark suit (read secret service or “NSA”). Racial profiling jokes tend to be the best, don’t they?
There were four standout searches in this one. The first was a direct pot-shot on Siri and its supposed effectiveness where a girl asks Siri to tell her about Serengeti (Googled it. It’s a national park, in case you didn’t know) but Siri tells Google to search for spaghetti. Apple vs. Google; forever alive!
The second was a woman searching for “vaccines cause autism” and clearly looking for “cognitive bias”. Google tells her that there are 1 million results that say that vaccines don’t cause autism but one says that they do. She picks the one that says that they do.
We also found the one with the Deep Web cool, especially how Google donned a hood and took up a lantern. Very hilarious.
The fourth version had some references to Google for business or at least a career. It showed a supposed “loser” looking for ways to make himself feel better. Clearly a nerd, the guy searched for ways of becoming an astronaut, work for NASA, planetarium jobs, and planetarium volunteers. When Google didn’t give him anything, he ended up with “help wanted laser tag”. Sad, sad, sad.
The other search that was funny was because of the way it was delivered in the video. This girl asks for “Paul Walker car crash”. Google presents results saying it was very sad. The girl then takes a pause and goes for the pics. A pot-shot at sadism that one.
The last video also had two funny searches but the funniest bit was actually a dig at Google itself. This girl asks for the photos of her nephew to be uploaded only for Google to come back at her suggesting that she do it on Google+. Google presents Google+ as “Google meets Facebook”. The desperation on Google’s face was where the hilarity lay. The second standout search was another example of cognitive bias and it involved “climate change is not real”.
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