Google Trends: The Borg Speaks

Here’s an experiment:

Get millions of people to sit down at computers simultaneously, and type their innermost thoughts into a box. Their burning questions, their idle meanderings, their secret desires, their compulsions, their curiosities…whatever generates just enough psychic energy to move their fingers to type.

Send these hundreds of millions of thoughts to a massive database, and publish the results in real time.

Ladies and gentlemen: welcome to Google Trends.

So what’s on our collective hive mind today? Well, aside from “leftover ham recipes” and “post holiday sales“, there are a few surprises.

Take Marci Ladakokos, a woman who is suing after being strip-searched at a Maine jail. Something tell me a lot of these are image searches.

Or Bruce Pardo, a man who shot at least 8 people and then committed suicide, all while dressed in a Santa Claus outfit. Bruce Pardo, come on down, you’re our newest GoogleStar™!

Sometimes we can guess how the Borg makes these choices. Why would Julie Newmar be a top search trend today? Because Eartha Kitt died yesterday, of course. Eartha Kitt played Catwoman, who was also played by Julie Newmar. The hive swarms rapidly from thought to thought. Ask not why.

But my favorite of the day has to be Marvalyn Foster. There are no pictures available yet, but the story says it all:

Woman Awarded $198,000 For ‘Horse Teeth’

Patient Says Dentist Promised Celebrity Smile

BRIDGEPORT, Conn. – A Bridgeport jury has awarded more than $198,000 to a woman who claims her dentist promised her a celebrity smile, but gave her what her attorney called “horse teeth.”  Attorney Richard Meehan Jr. said his client, Marvalyn Foster sued Stamford dentist Darren Martinez because he promised her a “big, beautiful Hollywood celebrity smile.”       

Foster wanted Martinez to give her a permanent bridge to replace a false tooth.Meehan said that Foster woke up from the procedure to discover that Martinez extracted three teeth and made a large bridge that resembled horse teeth.

 

The collective consciousness has spoken. Marvalyn Foster, today is all yours.