The Search Engine Shrink
C’mon kids, we’re about to take a trip in the Wayback Machine. Not with Mr. Peabody and his boy Sherman, but with the Slackmistress. The year was 1980, and the SlackFamily was in possession of a bright shiny Apple IIe with a bunch of software that was nicked from the neighbors fell off of a truck.
What computers looked like when you still had to go to a store to buy porn.
Not only did I have my own personal copy of Oregon Trail and Lemonade, but there was also…Ask Freud?
I knew that Freud was some sort of doctor, as I had seen his name while scanning through the World Book Encyclopedia in the school library (c’mon, I was a nerd.) I ran the file, and a pink head filled the screen.
Ask Freud a Question.
What should I do with my life? I typed. (I was a serious eight-year-old.)
Please elucidate.
What should I do with the rest of my life?
Interesting. Tell me about your mother.
In two questions, my eight-year-old hopes were dashed on the reality that Freud wasn’t the answer to all of my problems, but an 8-bit image and a random comment generator. It didn’t stop me from firing the program up every few weeks and asking it wildly inappropriate questions that I learned from the porn stashed in the basement.
(Although it was Freud, so maybe it was appropriate.)
My husband and I were discussing apple emulators the other day (see previous parenthetical about being a nerd) and I wondered what happened to Ask Freud. Alas, outside of one comment on a message board six years ago, I can’t find any record that it ever existed.
But I soon realized that we don’t need Ask Freud. Simply fire up the Search Engine Shrink and the Internet will answer all of our burning questions! Except…which search engine gives the sort of advice you’re looking for?
There’s only one way to find out.
The Relationship Question: Should I break up with my boyfriend?
First answer: Love is not enough to make a lasting relationship. Yes, I feel it best you break up with this man. First of all, you are obviously not ready to settle down because of those feelings of what you want to do and be. You want to fly and he wants to keep you tied down.
Google = Oprah.
First answer: A quiz. Copout, answering a question with a question?
Yahoo! = Psych major.
First answer: Katie, dump him. He’s playing both sides of the fence and he’s probably told his boyfriend the same load of bull. I have nothing against bisexual people. To each his own. But if you want to be in a monogamous relationship this dude needs to be shown the door NOW.
Ask.com = Your mom.
The Sex Question: Should I have sex on the first date?
First answer: Is sex right on a first date? There’s no question of right or wrong in these cases. That’s a value judgment which reflects society’s double standards on sex, particularly with regard to women. It also does not take into account the gender differences in approach to sex which often dictates the situation.
Men are from Mars, women are from some bizarre planet that compels them to buy self-help books. Google = Oprah, once again.
Or Google just took a women’s studies class and will soon be entering into an “experimental” phase.
First answer: A YouTube Video of a dating/advice show. I would have watched it, but the woman’s voice is practically an advertisement for ball gags. This is why we have internet dating, so no one needs to hear you sound like the love child of Betty Boop and Kathy Griffin. (Oh wait, that’s me.)
Yahoo! = Public Access version of Dr. Drew.
First answer: Long story short: Guy meets girl on a dating site on Friday night. She shows him her naughty bits on a webcam. He drives to her place and they have sex all weekend. And he never hears from her again.
I’m not exactly sure what the problem is, here.
Ask.com = Fiction. Or how I met my husband. (Kinda.)
The Etiquette Question: Is it okay to masturbate on a friend’s couch?
The age old-mystery of why old people keep the plastic on their sofa is finally answered. Now if you'll excuse me, I have to bleach my retinas.
First answer: A story about catching a roommate’s friend masturbating on the couch. Horrifying and wrong.
So, no.
Google = Oprah, if Oprah had Miss Manners on talking about jerking off on a friend’s sofa.
First answer: A story about a horny lesbian masturbating on a friend’s couch. Hot.
So, yes.
Yahoo! = Hot lesbians answer the important stuff.
First answer: Something about Mad Men, deer penis, and royalty.
Ask.com = Your therapist, if he was Hunter S. Thompson.
What’s the stupidest thing you’ve asked a search engine? And your answer to the last question?
I once asked google about finding a ‘mango stripper’ (de-pits mangoes) and the 1st link that came up was ME, commenting on pointlessbanter about how I own a mango stripper as a useless home store item.
I of course had to check…now its the 2nd link. Maybe this comment will get it back to #1. *crosses fingers*
Mango Stripper is probably the #1 name in Fruit Fetish Porn!
Those search engines take you to tons of blogs now, whereas five years ago, you might have been able to locate a legit article on the subject. Heh. Though I do love some of the answers you find on yahoo.
We had an Apple IIc and I was just telling my kid about Lemonade and Print Shop the other day and how our elementary school had two Commodores for the entire school.
I was part of the nerd squad who go to get to school at 7am to learn Pascal!
Ask Freud must be like the “super computer” that was at a technology museum in Portland when I was a kid (This was oh, 25 years ago or so.) You stepped in and sat down like a photo booth and you could ask it questions by typing, and its response would appear on the screen. “Reads your mind!” “Have a real conversation with a machine!” “In 10 years, computers may be fully sentient!”
Of course, the exhibit was geared towards kids 12 and under, and I didn’t realize it was essentially a comment generator based on keywords. My 7-year old self thought that it was the answer to all of my problems, and that this genius supercomputer and I would go on grand adventures together and it would tell me everything about everyone.
There is an animated series here about a boy and his 2-ton computer going on adventures.
I had a Commodore, rather than an Apple, so I had to play Oregon Trail at school, but I had Rabbit Chaser (a rather odd Pac-Man knock off in which you played a bunny whose goal was to fill a maze with little yellow dots – I suppose making them black would have been too gross, while avoiding cars. When I upgraded from the Vic 20 to the Commodore 64, I discovered that there was a more advanced version of the game, on the same cassette tape (!), which included a scary race car that would zip across the screen at random intervals, and an ambulance that would come retrieve your poor, bleeding carcass after you’d been squished). Now, however, I have Oregon Trail on my phone – except I can’t name my team members for my best friends and boys I have crushes on. (And it’s not because I have no friends or my husband would be jealous – it’s because the game generates the names of the party members, and the leader is always a man. So boo to that. It’s still kinda fun, though.)
I think the Search Engine Shrink could also make use of the suggested searches drop down – kind of a Web 2.0 method of association. For instance, if I type, “Should I” in the Google search box, the top suggestions include “Should I refinance,” “should I stay or should I go,” “should I get married,” “should I go to law school,” and “should I shave my pubic hair.” So obviously you should refinance, get married, leave him, go to lawschool and shave your pubic hair. (Note: Nothing in the previous paragraph is to be taken as either psychiatric or legal advice. Your fucked-up life is your own problem.)
I used to have a magic 8 ball watch that I would ask questions and tried to abide by everything it answered for a day. I ended up with a lot of junk food and a lack of hygiene.
I’m REALLY surprised Google’s answer to “Should I have sex on the first date” was not, “Yes. Would you like to go on one?”
That’s because Google is too intimidated to ask me out. At least that what my mom tells me.
There was another version of the Freud program called “Eliza”. I’d program in inappropriate answers based on the keywords to see the reactions of my fellow computer lab kids.
The first computer I used was a Commodore Pet.
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