The words that the world types into Google search are an ever-evolving global stream of consciousness, constantly fed by questions, idle thoughts, and random keywords.
It occurred to Justin Hook, a writer’s assistant on the animated comedy show Bob’s Burgers, that our Google searches would make the perfect basis for a guessing game. Using the style of the long-running TV gameshow Family Feud (in which contestants guess at common survey answers) he called his creation Google Feud.
The game’s website offers the player an incomplete sentence, and invites three guesses on the most common searches in four categories: culture, people, names, and questions. Then it provides a list of the most common searches, gathered Google’s autocomplete function—the system triggered when you start typing into the Google search bar, that fills in what its algorithm believes you are searching for. Quartz reached out to Hook for comment on how he built the game, and will update this post with any response.
The game is harder than it seems, and offers a fascinating and sometimes unsettling glimpse into our collective ignorances and imaginations. After a morning of playing, here are some insights Quartz has gleaned into the state of the human psyche:
We have strong feelings about giraffes
Giraffes are…
We are split in our opinion of the National Rifle Association
The NRA is…
We are looking for new sources of dairy
Can you milk a…
We do not like the poor
The poor should…
We should see a doctor
I think I have…
We are inquisitive
Is there such a thing as a…
We have very high expectations for the abilities of dogs
Can dogs learn to…
