Dear Google, you're awesome EXCEPT for this part.

by GENEVIEVE LISTON

Dear Google,

Let me just begin this letter by saying you are pretty spectacular. I once read that you handle something like over 1 billion searches per day. That’s mental!

And I’ve just moved to London, so as you can imagine I have had to lean on you a fair bit of late. For example without you I would have no idea which tubes to catch or why all my English friends look at me like a complete pervert when I direct them to the total ‘spunk’ standing at the bar.

Also, if you didn’t exist, the rice in my curry the other night probably would have been gluggy and that cork most definitely would still be stuck in that 3 pound bottle of plonk.  You’ve really saved my skin over here, so please, keep my overall appreciation for you in mind as you read on.

The reason I am writing to you is I do have one tiny request. I was just wondering if you could maybe relinquish your hold, just slightly, on all that is correct and factual in the world?

You see, I’m just finding it really hard to get people to engage in kitchen table and pub arguments about meaningless rubbish these days. It seems that being able to reach actual ‘facts’ in seconds through your search engine means that people are no longer willing or bothered with hour-long arguments about, for example, whether  Tom Hanks won Oscars for both Cast Away and Philadelphia.

And quite frankly I miss those discussions.

You do know the ones I’m talking about right? Those ones that went round and round in circles for hours with each person not only stating what they knew, but how they knew it and where they were sitting the exact moment they discovered it. All the while becoming more sure that their knowledge is far superior to anyone else at the table.

For example, I know that Tom Hanks did, in fact, win Oscars for both Cast Away AND Philadelphia. I know this because I saw it on Saturday Night Live.  Jonah Hill was hosting because he had just been nominated for an Academy Award for his role in Moneyball. Which, PS, is an unreal film.

Anyway, so they brought out Tom Hanks to give him a lesson about being humble after being nominated. To be honest it was some pretty shitty banter between the two. And probably one of the weakest episodes of SNL I have seen in a long time. Which is weird because I usually find Jonah Hill pretty funny.

But he was properly rubbish in this episode. In fact if it hadn’t have been for the fact that 30 Rock is on hiatus, and there were no new episodes of Suits or The Newsroom to download, I probably would have turned it off after the first five minutes. Anyway so Tom Hanks came out holding an OSCAR in each hand and was taunting Hill with them. He DEFINITELY said he had won two OSCARS – one for Philadelphia and one for Cast Away….

You see! It is this line of argument and reasoning that you have taken from us.

And don’t even get me started on trivia nights.The humble art of the trivia night, has been all but massacred by you Google. And are you sorry? Even a little bit?

All I’m asking is to be given back what I believe to be our right to argue with friends and family about things like, who kicked the first goal in the 2005 Grand Final or whether Dawson dated Joey or Jen first.

You have to give us a chance to know some shit and to prove that we know shit to our mates. I totally appreciate all else you have done for us and the services you continue to provide – but I just can’t bear to think that all those episodes of Mythbusters and twenty odd Hitler documentarieson SBS I’ve watched have been for nothing.  So if you could give us that one thing back, that would be super ace.Many ThanksGenevieve
Liston

PS. I just Googled it, and Tom Hanks actually won his OSCARS for Philadelphia and Forrest Gump… My bad.

Genevieve is an TV producer now living and working in London. You can find her on Twitter here.