Monday 12 August 2013

Auto - Complete


Never has an option in Google been so human than Auto- Complete. Just like we humans are prejudiced and harbor extreme views about stuffs we have never experienced in reality , Auto-complete can be taken as a sign of prejudice in virtual world. 

For all readers , who wonder what is Auto-Complete, it is a part of Google Instant which completes the query once you start typing the search term.

It was so much fun and surprising for it gave out dominant views as well as stuffs which caught me completely off-guard at certain places. 

So first , as a Cinema crazed Indian , I gave a query of 

" Bollywood is a / Bollywood is " and it completed it as 

Joke , Derogatory bastardization of Hollywood , Copy Cat , Crap , Corrupting Indian Youth , Stupid , Bullshit . 

These are answers which catches anyone completely off-guard , for Bollywood is being promoted as Soft power of India and also as a reflection of Indian Culture. Truly Hilarious indeed . 

So now I wanted to know how Google completes questions about Indian States like " Maharashtra is a / Maharashtra is " 

Maharashtra : Is in North or South ( A classic question that many Maharashtrians face when they are posed a question of whether they are South Indian or North Indian ) .

Punjab : Is a rich state ( Hmm ...not bad ). Thank God it didn't complete the search as drugged state as Rahul Gandhi proclaimed in his speech. Courtesy : His classic analytical skills. 

West Bengal : Is a hotbed of dharnas ( Here I really appreciated Google ) .

Gujarat : Is a dry state , Is a red hot economy ( Wow !!! ) 

Tamil Nadu : Is a separate country ( What the hell moment for a person who is in Chennai for more than 20 years ) 

Bihar : Is a backward state why ? ( A Good question to be answered ) .

Arunachal Pradesh : Is a part of India or China ( A question of International importance ) 

Kerala : Is a state with 100 % literacy ( Hats off !!! ) but the next one was surprising , Is a lunatic Asylum ( A LOL moment , but on careful analysis, it was a reference by Swami Vivekananda seeing the Casteism in Princely states of Kerala ).

Now coming to the Wannabe state

Telengana : Is a mistake ( Only time can answer it ) , Is a state ( forward thinking !! ) , Is a reality ( Yeah it is !! ). 

Then I searched for questions like " Tamils are " , " Bengalis are "

Tamils : Smart ( that's comforting ), Ugly , Bad , Racists ( Not sure what to say ). 

Bengalis : Most Intelligent , Lazy , Cowards , Ugly ( Really ? ) 

Here, search results about Maharashtrians, Punjabis , Biharis are not added for I just don't want to get beaten up . Then it did make me wonder about the biased content on websites and the pattern of search that is going on because the answers of Auto-complete option is just a reflection of above. 

So to sum this game off , I wanted to make one truly inevitable search. In current times when a film with cultural caricatures like Chennai Express amass 100 crores in a matter of week , my search was about the perpetual North- South divide . 

" South Indians are " , " North Indians are " .

South Indians : Are from Africa ( People, no need to get pumped up for it talks about Evolution and Human Migration ) , next was a dominant view which even many South Indians accuse themselves off . That is ' Dark ' . 

North Indians : White ( An another misconception ) , Rude ( yet another misconception ). 

So I ended up the search with " Chennai Express is a " and the answer was , " Chennai Express is a remake of which movie / South Indian movie "

This was hilarious for it ripped off multiple scenes straight off without credits , when it was touted as a Tribute . 

May be this movie is Bollywood's Idea of bridging North- South divide

See you in Auto-Search 2.0 . 

Happy Googling !!!


Link :

Rahul Gandhi on Punjab's drug problem : http://www.dnaindia.com/india/1752259/report-punjab-minister-slams-rahul-gandhi-for-drug-remarks

20 comments:

  1. Nice one. I worked it in daily. But never thought of posting like this idea. A google screenshot would have been better.

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    1. Thank you nachi :) Yeah that would have done great .... Sure will come back with that in next part

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  2. Good one da Jeya! I even googled some of the posts after reading your article.. :D

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    1. Am sure you would have got interesting results :) In fact I couldn't post some because they were so mean

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  3. A great read... interesting as well as satirical at some points but it leaves an ever present question in the end that you were too clever to leave open.

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    1. Thank you Stu :D Wish i could have structured in different way .

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  4. :D nice piece of work... now i have one more question, to add to a handful, u have included in your post...?

    How does Google decide a certain list of phrases to auto complete? Is it bcos ppl use them often? If so, can Google be true most cases, in auto complete?

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    1. Actually Google decides based on the posts related to the keyword and also based on history of searches that people make. So Hate searches like " Why are South Indians ugly " , " Why are North Indians rude ", " Why are Tamils proud ", adds to the pattern. Moreover people in India are very clever. To reach Google main page , they search for Google in Google search. :D So google ended being searched some lakh times here.

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    2. so u say, google reflects what ppl think about various stuff...?

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    3. It is more like Google sniff out patterns from What people write in Web and what they search for . They can easily do this and they are doing this .

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  5. Fun read, Jeyannathann! The responses via auto complete are very entertaining. Who can say Google doesn't put you in a good mood?

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    1. Thank you Vidya :) It was a laugh riot in some cases.

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  6. Man! Awesome read! Brings out the mindsets. Quite a bit of research into it. Kudos! Keep it rolling out :-)

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    1. Thank you man :) With increased content being posted the auto-complete may give better results .

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  7. =D This has been a hot topic for quite some time now among internet bloggers. Very interesting to read it from the perspective of an Indian. Nice analysis! Sniffs - I smell sarcasm a lot!

    Let me remind you that fans of our superstar Krishna are already in a look out for you.
    A message from them - "December that!" Hope you are intelligent enough to decipher it. ;) HA!

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    1. Nandri Hai :) by the way , Krishna fans huh. Hope they don't scare me by wearing hideous looking wigs :P

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  8. Interesting post! See how different people think and search for an answer through google. One interesting and sad fact is that for most search queries that has " is a", "was a" all has the negative preceding the positive points . Maybe that's the way the world is now

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    1. People are increasingly becoming closed in comparison to the world which is opening up in ways never imagined.

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