“This Is A Poem About America”: People Are Sharing Google Search Autofill Results That Sum Up American Life Right Now
“Do I have coronavirus? Do I get a stimulus check? Do I have anxiety?” These are the Google search autofill results that came up for writer, photographer, and editor Amanda Guinzburg when she typed in, “Do I.”
According to her, it’s a “poem about America” that expresses what some Americans are going through in 2020. It’s eerily accurate, considering that there’s a pandemic going on, how people are feeling stressed out, and how many Americans have lost their jobs during the Covid-19 crisis.
Amanda’s post on Twitter went viral with more than 437k likes and over 86.6k retweets, with other social media users pitching in with their versions of Google search autofill to continue the poem. Scroll down and have look, dear Pandas. Be sure to let us know in the comments what you think.
Amanda Guinzburg posted her Google search autofill results and said that it’s a poem about America
Image credits: Guinz
Image credits: Guinz
Other Twitter users joined in and continued the ‘poem’ with their own autofill results
Image credits: spacedentist
Image credits: spacedentist
Some social media users went for state editions
Image credits: Fox_Galewarden
Image credits: Fox_Galewarden
Image credits: ShitSlenderman
Image credits: ShitSlenderman
While others posted what Americans want to know in 2020
Image credits: JohnBarentine
Image credits: JohnBarentine
Image credits: EvyCouling
Image credits: EvyCouling
Image credits: ChelleRuns
Image credits: ChelleRuns
Image credits: Ygritafuego513
Image credits: Ygritafuego513
Image credits: JadeBethJ
Image credits: JadeBethJ
Image credits: LyndzLP
Image credits: LyndzLP
Tim Marcin of Mashable said that Amanda told him she’s “a little obsessed with Google searches as an obvious window into the zeitgeist.”
She said: “Every few weeks I enter really basic words like ‘will I’ or ‘How do’ or ‘Are we’ into the search and what shows up, particularly in the last 4 years, tends to be pretty chilling. I think as isolated as most of us are right now, and have been for the last four months, there’s a clamoring to feel seen. The mirror we normally take for granted, of ourselves, reflected through the faces looking back at us of other people, has been hidden because (most of us!) have been quarantined or 6 feet apart behind masks.”
Amanda added: “One of the loneliest feelings in the world is a google search that doesn’t autocomplete… so the reverse is also true when you see yourself reflected in the aggregate… it’s comforting.”
Somebody posted the Canadian version of Google search autofill results and, well, it’s quite different from the US versions
Image credits: JulesVictor5
Image credits: JulesVictor5
So, what’s the situation in the United States like right now if people believe these autofill ‘poems’ to be correct? There are currently over 12 million confirmed coronavirus cases worldwide. Over 3 million of them are in the United States and more than 132k people in the US have died with the coronavirus.
This has led to at least two dozen states pausing or rolling back their reopening plans. On Wednesday, July 8, more than 58.6k new Covid-19 cases were identified in the United States and 820 people with the coronavirus died on that day.
Meanwhile, President Donald Trump’s administration has notified Congress and the UN that the US will be withdrawing from the World Health Organization.
According to Deutsche Welle, US unemployment figures fell to 11.1 percent, as the US regained 4.8 million jobs in June. So there is some good news but it’s mixed in with lots of anxiety for the future: some of these jobs could disappear again as the US is renewing shutdowns in some states.
Here’s how people reacted to all of the Google autofill ‘poems’
Image credits: RyanMcCann21
Image credits: senyorreporter
Image credits: OrdinaryAmeric7
Image credits: astronaia
Image credits: dotMorten
Image credits: jakkthecat
Image credits: drjessigold
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Image credits: Paulsifer42
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