Wednesday, September 26, 2012

The internet is a weird, weird place

I’m convinced Google is fucking with me. It all started a few weeks back when I decided to check my personal email at work one day. I logged on to the website and it was all in German.

that white girl fucking the dog

Having to know the fields in order to log on wasn’t necessary; I was able to navigate the website no problem.

gmail snapshot

I mean, seriously, “Nutzername and passwort”??

Luckily Google didn’t translate all my emails into German, so I was actually able to read them. Once I logged out of the account, everything returned to normal. I thought it was weird, but carried on and didn’t think about it again until a week or so later when I re-discovered the glitch while checking my email from work. 

About a week after that, it started happening when I was at home. About a week after that, it started affecting my search results; the entire webpage of results would show up in German. Most of the time Google would give me the option of translating the page into English. Thanks Google.

But, like the German glitch, the translator would glitch out too and wouldn’t always be available. I started having to learn the German words for “images” and “maps”. And when I looked up a map… that’s right… all the directions were in German.

It was getting increasingly difficult to find information on the internet, so I did what any normal person would do: I Google’d it.

that white girl google thinks I'm german

And all the webpages were displayed in… that’s right… English.

that white girl wtf google

Forgetting my intentions entirely, I spent the next five minutes trying to trick Google into thinking I was German. Suddenly the problem became that Google didn’t think I was German anymore. Google was having none of it. All English, all the time.

I decided that finding a solution to my problem was unnecessary since my problem no longer existed.

Until a couple days later, when the problem reared it’s ugly head once again. Since then, I haven’t had to get directions so having German Google hasn’t been too much of a pain in the ass. That’s why I haven’t tried to fix it again. Also, I’m lazy.

A couple days ago, I realized that this would make a fairly entertaining blog post. I started writing it up; one of the first things I did was go to my email account and screenshot the log in screen. More than halfway through this post, I decided to screenshot a results screen. I put in a dummy search term into Google and awaited the results.

that white girl i'm not german

Results… in English. Naturally. And now I’m waiting for it to go back to the German default, but it’s not. It’s all “Of course you’re English, why would I think you’re German?”.

It’s like Google knows that I’m writing about it and wants to really fuck with me.

that white girl letter to google

6 comments:

  1. Hey guess what? I went on Google translate to find out the German word for syphilis for you and when I typed in syphilis it auto-detected my language as German before I selected a language!!

    http://translate.google.com/#auto/de/syphilis

    There is some strange connection between syphilis, Germany, and you that Google seems bent on exposing.

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  2. LOL! I'm guessing that either it's an enormous practical joke and Google is just screwing with you, or Google really really wants you to learn German and is making it easy for you.

    Either way, I find it mildly disturbing that Google is showing such obvious signs of sentience.

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  3. How weird. But hilarious.
    Ich kann nur annehmen, dass denkt Google Sie sind jüdische und ist im Begriff, Ihnen eine Zugfahrt. NICHT mit dem Zug ride.Hide in einem Dachboden und Blog in einem Tagebuch, bis Google durch die alliierten Streitkräfte ausgesetzt ist!

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  4. Literally lol'd on the train. "Not German" must be the secret reset code?

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  5. Google is rational, so you must have done something to make it think you're German. Have you been looking at any nudist/spanking sites?

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  6. Gorm - for the last time - I don't have syphilis!!

    Kellie - me too! Google has a mind of it's own.

    Pickleope - very weird. I'm tempted to go to Google translate to see what you have written in German, but I'm afraid that will perpetuate my problem.

    Jill - I think it must be! Happy to entertain you.

    Gorilla - I don't think I have. I've even used Bing for all my bratwurst searches! :)

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