A couple weeks ago I was working on something else when, while googling the Mathis Brothers, the above auto-complete appeared in my browser. People of Oklahoma have been telling the same stories about the Mathis Brothers for years, and now it's part of Google's search algorithm, almost like something in a high-tech Richard Gere movie.
So, why does Mathis Brothers Gerbil come up for me when I'm really searching for Mathis Brothers Hamster? We'll let Google explain:
The search queries that you see as part of Autocomplete are a reflection of the search activity of users and the content of web pages indexed by Google. In addition to these queries, you may also see predictions from:
- Relevant searches you’ve done in the past (if you’re signed in and have Web History turned on)
- Google+ profiles that match the name of a person you’re searching for
Apart from the Google+ profiles that may appear, all of the predicted queries that are shown in the drop-down list have been typed previously by Google users or appear on the web.
Anyway, it gave me the idea to see what else people are googling about people from Oklahoma. I messed around with it for awhile, putting in people's names or adding a word like "is" before their names. The results are after the jump.
Yes, folks, I have some breaking news: Nerds on the internet love Emily Sutton. How many times does she have to tell you? She has a very serious boyfriend, and no, she's not related to Eddie Sutton. Wait what the hell
-
To me the great untold sports story in Oklahoma is the year Howard Schnellenberger spent at OU. What really happened? We all heard lots of rumors about his drinking and he almost killed that one player and then just one afternoon he released what looked to me like a hostage video saying he was quitting. And pretty soon we all moved on from hating Howard Schnellenberger to hating John Blake.
It's been twenty years now -- surely some people would be willing to talk now. Some enterprising reporter needs to dig into it. A longform article on that would be like catnip to me.
-
OK, moving on to other, less disastrous OU football coaches. A lot of people seem to google around in hopes that they can find evidence Stoops is a back guy so they can pwn him on OrangePower.com, but at least the popeye thing is cool.
-
Is Russell Westbrook ugly? I guess I'm not the best person to judge but he seems like a good-looking guy to me. Maybe some ladies or gay dudes can chime in here. It's the question that people have been debating since the dawn of time: Is Russell Westbrook ugly?
How can you not love this smile?
BTW, even if we grant the premise that Russell Westbrook is ugly, what are you guys hoping to find out by googling "why" he's ugly? A Yahoo Answers paragraph explaining his parents genes?
-
You know, I had never once in my entire life wondered whether or not the Pioneer Woman is LDS or not. But as soon as I read that, I HAD to know. I mean, I have zero interest in either the Pioneer Woman or Mormonism, but something about the fact that I read that question and the fact that I had Google at my fingertips just compelled my brain to look it up and find out. What has happened to my life?
-
Okay I didn't know what this one was about at all, but it apparently stems from a 2013 incident in which Kristen Chenoweth got yelled at by some flight attendant because she was trying to bring her service dog onto a plane. And, I have to confess, I agree with the googlers that I do wonder why Kristen Chenoweth needs a service dog, especially when that service dog looks like this:
-
1. Terrible liquor laws
2. Because Kansas sucks and Texas blows
3. Puritanical religious people vote more than the rest of us
4. It's complex
-
He's from New Jersey, he used to be married, he's almost certainly on vacation, and I don't believe he is technically a midget although something about the fact that it's questionable enough that people actually have to google it makes me inordinately happy.
That's all for me. Follow me on Twitter here. Good bye!
