Tuesday, August 08, 2006

AOL driveby haiku

I feel like a gawker crawling past a traffic incident... CNET has an excellent collection of excerpts from the AOL search log repository. They read like poetry. I’ve assembled some “found haiku” out of them.

User 1515830

chai tea calories
divorce laws in ohio
curtains; i hate men

User 4331025

wastewater jobs mass
revenge for a cheating spouse
first date dos and donts

User 100906

should you call your ex
hes just not that into u
addicted to love

User 3544012

beasteality
harley performance cafe
circumsize pictures

User 591476

how to stop bingeing
pregnancy on birth control
how to starve yourself


I’m almost as fascinated by what the searches reveal about people’s attitudes to the technology as what it tells us about their lives. While many users just type in keywords, from time to time they let their guard down. It almost sounds as if they’re looking for someone to confide in. For example, user 1515830 types in some crisp searches like “chai tea calories” and “curtains”, but also let’s slip “can you adopt after a suicide attempt” and “i hate men”. Eliza, where are you when we need you?

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