So Unbelievable it Sounds Like you Googled It

“To Google”

When it first appeared, Google Search was a breath of fresh air. Simple, powerful search that Just Worked. It’s little wonder that the phase “to Google” something became synonymous with “to search for” something.

Somewhere, Google lost its way.¹ Perhaps the latest example of that is the injection of AI into every search²:

I’ve been to the cinema a few times lately so I’ve seen the Google AI ad that inspired me to make this parody… a lot.
Music by Dead Tubes Foundation (click to unmute/mute).

Apparently the kids these days don’t “Google it”. At least, not in their colloquialisms: they’re still probably using the search engine.

They say that they’ll “search it up”.

And this presents us with an opportunity:

Let’s reclaim the phrase “to Google”

I was inspired by a blog post by Mr Scribs (itself inspired by a Fediverse conversation), discovered via Bubbles:

We should turn the verb use of googling into an insult.

Example: “That’s so unbelievable it sounds like you googled it.”

Mr Scribs, in a good domain

I love this, and I’m absolutely going to start using it. “To Google” can absolutely transform from meaning “to search for, using a Web search engine” to meaning:

to seek knowledge in a lazy and convenient way, without regard for its accuracy
(“I Googled from a guy at the pub that 5G caused Covid”)
to acquire information that can’t accurately be sourced or verified
(“don’t quote me on that, though: I Googled it”)
to prefer an answer to a question that’s mildly more-convenient for the asker, even if getting it was ethically problematic
(“pass me the jump leads, I’m going to Google one of the hostages”)

DeGoogling is so… 2010s. Let’s make the 2020s the decade where we redefine Google as a verb, in a way that better represents what it means to continue to buy in to the ever-increasingly toxic Google Search ecosystem.

Footnotes

¹ Maybe it was then the Search-Chrome-Analytics trifecta that positioned the company as both the assistant to, and the adversary of, the users. Maybe it was when they dropped “don’t be evil”. Maybe it was when they stopped listening to users, or when they stopped listening to their own developers. Maybe it was when they helped sterilise the Web. Maybe it was AMP and they way they abused their monopoly to force it down everybody’s throats. Maybe it was when they killed (insert your favourite service here). Maybe it was when they started enshittifying Android. Make your own mind up.

² Yes, I’m aware that some other search engines include AI summaries in results, too. But they all seem easier to turn off… and I’m yet to see a cinema advertisement about the fact that they do it for anything other that Google Search.